The CRU graph. Note that it
is calibrated in tenths of a degree Celsius and that even that tiny
amount of warming started long before the late 20th century. The
horizontal line is totally arbitrary, just a visual trick. The whole
graph would be a horizontal line if it were calibrated in whole degrees
-- thus showing ZERO warming

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist instinct") in
many people that causes them to delight in going without material
comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such people --
with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example. Many
Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that instinct
too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious committments they
have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them to live in an
ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them to press on us
all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

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30 November, 2014

Hundreds of Records Fall During U.S. Cold Spell

Mid-November 2014 has been a time of record-setting temperatures and
snowfall. Hardly anyone in the United States can avoid it, and even if
your locale hasn’t experienced record cold itself, somewhere in your
region has. This is not how global warming is supposed to work.

The United States has experienced an unusual amount of record-breaking
cold weather and weather-related phenomena in 2014. Early in the year,
in large part due to the polar vortex, hundreds, if not thousands, of
American cities and towns experienced multiple days of record-setting
temperatures – both record lows and record-low high temperatures.

This odd weather continued into the summer. In July, record lows or
record-low high temperatures were set in cities across the nation,
including in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, and Pittsburgh, as well as in
states from Minnesota to Alabama and Florida. The streak continued into
September, when 246 record-low high temperature records were broken or
tied between September 1 and September 10 alone.

Jacksonville, Florida recently joined hundreds of other cities in the
nation that have, since November 10, witnessed record lows – a low of 24
degrees broke the 141-year-old mark for November 20 by six degrees.

Weather Bell Analytics reports:

An astounding 226 million Americans will experience
at or below freezing temperatures (32°F) on Tuesday as well – if you
venture outdoors.

More than 85% of the surface area of the Lower 48
reached or fell below freezing Tuesday morning. All 50 states saw at or
below freezing temperatures on Tuesday.

Record lows from Idaho to Nebraska and Iowa south to
Texas and east through the Great Lakes, the eastern 2/3 of the US will
shatter decades-long and in some cases, century-long records.
Temperatures east of the Rockies will be 20–40°F below climate normals.

Compared to normal, temperatures over the past
several days have dropped off a cliff – to 10°C below climate normal –
more anomalous than even during the polar vortex of early January.

And Boston.com reported 1,360 cities and towns set daily-low maximum records over the past week.

On one night in mid-November, every state in the nation, including
Florida, Hawaii, and Texas, had one or more locations reporting at or
below freezing temperatures, and 85 percent of the nation saw freezing
temperatures. This is mid-November, not mid-winter.

And let’s not forget about snowfall. Buffalo, among other Great Lakes
region cities, is experiencing “Snowpocalypse,” a phrase I’m copywriting
if possible. More than six feet of snow fell in Buffalo in less than 48
hours, with three or more feet threatening to fall by the end of the
week. This is more than the city typically gets annually.

By November 3, areas in Maine, which typically accumulate less than a
foot of snow for the entire month of November, had already received two
feet of snow. Not to be outdone, on November 1, South Carolina
experienced its earliest snowfall since official records began in 1886.
The previous earliest snowfall recorded was on November 9, 1913.

Indeed, snow currently covers more than 50 percent of the country, more
than twice the coverage the United States usually experiences for
mid-November.

A couple of months ago, effective in November, National Grid, one of
Massachusetts’ two dominant utilities, announced rate increases of a
“whopping” 37 percent over last year. Other utilities in the region are
expected to follow suit.

It’s dramatic headlines like these that make rooftop solar sound so
attractive to people wanting to save money. In fact, embedded within the
online version of the Boston Globe story: “Electric rates in Mass. set
to spike this winter,” is a link to another article: “How to install
solar power and save.” The solar story points out: “By now everyone
knows that solar power can save homeowners big money on utility bills.”
It claims that solar works even in New England’s dreary winters and
cites Henry K. Vandermark, founder and president of Solar Wave Energy in
Cambridge, as saying: “Even snow doesn’t matter if your panels have a
steep angle. It just slides right off them.”

Solar is not the panacea it is promoted to be, though it is true
that—after a substantial investment, heavy government subsidies (funded
by all taxpayers), and generous net-metering programs (that raise costs
for non-solar customers)—solar systems can save money on the typical
homeowners’ monthly bill.

New England has seen one big power plant close within the past
year—Salem Harbor Power Station in Salem, Massachusetts went “dark” on
June 1, in part due to tightening federal regulations. Another major
closure will take place within weeks: Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

A new, state-of-the-art natural gas plant on 18 acres of the 65-acre
Salem site will replace the Salem Harbor plant. The remaining 47 acres
will see redevelopment, including renewable energy. But, that plan has
received pushback from environmental groups that want it fully replaced
with renewables. The Boston Globe states: “A decade ago, replacing the
aging plant with a far cleaner natural gas facility would have thrilled
environmental and public health advocates.” The Conservation Law
Foundation filed a lawsuit against the project’s approval, claiming the
state “failed to adequately consider its own climate change law when
state energy officials approved the Salem plant.” In February, the group
settled the suit after it caused construction delays and reliability
concerns.

Just days before the plant closed, a report from The Daily Climate
addressed the controversy over usage of the Salem Harbor site: “Many
activists pushed back, arguing for wind or solar generation or
non-energy uses, such as a marine biotechnology research facility.” One
activist group: HealthLink, “has marshaled opposition to running a gas
line to the new plant” and another: Grassroots Against Another Salem
Plant (GAASP), “has pledged to use peaceful civil disobedience to block
construction of the gas plant.”

The state of Massachusetts has offered three closed, or scheduled to be
closed, coal-fueled power plant sites $6 million to pursue renewable
energy projects—even though wind and solar require full back up from
fossil fuel power plants so electricity is available in the frigid
Northeast winters. Additionally, a new report from two Stanford Ph.Ds.,
who spent 4 years trying to prove renewables can, ultimately, replace
fossil fuels, have had to admit defeat: “Renewable energy technologies
simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.”

Having lived with the 63-year old Salem Harbor plant in her back yard
for 20 years, Linda Haley, doesn’t, according to WGBH News, “understand
why Salem would encourage use of a non-renewable fossil-fuel resource
like natural gas when alternative investments in green technology
finally seem possible.”

These stories reveal the snow job that has been perpetuated on the
general public regarding renewable energy. They don’t understand the
need for power or how it works. They seem to believe that when a rule
passes a magic wand waves replacing older, but still fully functional,
power plants with wind or solar—that doesn’t produce electricity
24/7/365 as do the decommissioned coal or nuclear plants and which
requires far more land to produce the same amount of, albeit
intermittent, electricity.

An iced up wind turbine or a solar panel covered in seven feet of
snow—even if some of it slides off—doesn’t generate electricity. And the
cold days of a Northeast winter create one of the times when energy
demand peaks.

Remember last winter’s polar vortex, when freezing weather crippled the
Northeast for days and put a tremendous strain on the electric supply?

Congress, following the near crisis, brought in utility executives to
explain the situation. Regarding the nation’s electrical output last
winter, Nicholas Akins, the CEO of the biggest generator of coal-fueled
electricity in the U.S., American Electric Power (AEP), told Congress:
“This country did not just dodge a bullet—we dodged a cannon ball.”
Similarly, Michael Kormos, Executive VP of Operations for PJM
Interconnection (the largest grid operator in the U.S. overseeing 13
states), commented on operations during the polar vortex: PJM was
“never—as some accounts have portrayed—700 megawatts away from rolling
blackouts. … On the worst day, January 7, our next step if we had lost a
very large generator would have been to implement a small voltage
reduction”—industry speak for the last option before power outages.

About last winter’s grid reliability, Glenn Beck claims: “I had an
energy guy come to me about three weeks ago. …He said, ‘We were one
power plant away from a blackout in the east all winter long… We were
using so much electricity. We were at the top of the grid. There’s no
more electricity. We’re at the top.’”

This winter’s extreme weather—with new records set for November power
demand—has already arrived. Come January, there will be not one, but two
fewer Northeast power plants since last year—not because they had to be
retired, but because of EPA regulations and public sentiment. In a
November 17 op-ed, former Senators Bayh (D-IN) and Judd (R-NH) said:
“Vermont Yankee produced 26 percent of New England’s power during the
peak of last year’s frigid weather.” The Northeast won’t have Vermont
Yankee’s power this January.

Without these two vital power plants, what will the Northeast do?

For several months, since I had a chat with Weather Bell Analytics’ Joe
Bastardi at the International Conference on Climate Change, I’ve
continued to say that I fear people will have to die due to power
outages that prevent them from heating their homes in the winter cold,
before the public wakes up to the damage of these policies. AEP’s Atkins
seems to agree. He told Columbus Business First: “Truth be known,
something’s probably going to have to happen before people realize that
there is an issue.”

“New England is in the midst of an energy crisis,” claims WGBH News. The
report continues: “residents and businesses are facing a future that
may include ‘rolling blackouts’ on days when usage is highest.”

ISO New England, the agency that oversees the power grid, warns, in the
Boston Globe: “Boston and northeast Massachusetts are ‘expected to face
an electricity capacity shortage’ that could lead to rolling blackouts
or the use of trailer-mounted diesel generators—which emit far more
pollutants than natural gas—to fill the gap.” Ray Hepper, the lawyer for
ISO New England, in a court filing, wrote: “The ISO simply cannot make
megawatts of generation materialize that are not on the system.” In an
interview, he added: “We’re really, as a region, at the point of needing
new power plants.”

As the Salem Harbor story illustrates, natural gas will likely fuel
those new power plants and environmental groups are expected to
challenge construction. Plus, natural gas faces cost volatility. On
November 20, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), in the wake of November
cold, not experienced since the 1970s when global cooling was predicted,
featured an article titled: “Chill pushes up natural-gas prices” that
stated: “Natural-gas stockpiles shrank by more than expected last week
reflecting surging demand.” As in the ’70s, many are now projecting,
based on solar activity and other natural variables, a long global
cooling trend.

While the Boston Globe, in September, said: “The upcoming winter is not
expected to be as cold as last season,” Bastardi told me otherwise. He
said: “This winter could be as cold and nasty as last year and in a
worst case go beyond that to some of the great winters of the late
1970s, lasting all the way into April. As it is, we still have a winter
comparable to last year forecasted, though the position of the worst,
relative to averages, may be further southeast than last year.” During a
November 19 appearance with Neil Cavuto, Bastardi suggested that we may
see a bit of warming after November, but will have one, or two, very
cold months after that.

The WSJ quoted Brian Bradshaw, portfolio manager at BP Capital in
Dallas: “‘Everyone thinks it’s not possible’ to have another winter like
last year ‘But the weather does impossible things all the time.’” WSJ
added: “the natural-gas market is setting up for a repeat of last
winter.”

So, why, when natural gas prices sit at historic lows that experts
predicted will lower electricity rates, is the Northeast facing
double-digit increases? The answer: there is no magic wand. The changes
have been mandated, but the replacements aren’t ready yet. Ray Gifford,
former commissioner with the Colorado Public Utility Commission, told
me: “I don’t see how the gas infrastructure in New England can be built
fast enough to replace retiring baseload capacity.”

Within the past decade, natural gas went from supplying less than a
fifth of New England’s power to one half—which could be great if New
England had natural gas, but it is, as Tim Maverick, Commodities
Correspondent for Wall Street Daily, says: “gas-starved.” After last
winter’s freezing weather, Maverick wrote: “The Northeast was slapped in
the face with the reality that there’s not sufficient pipeline
infrastructure to provide it with the mega-energy pull it draws in the
colder season. This is probably because not one new pipeline
infrastructure has been introduced in over 40 years. Natural gas
consumption in the Northeast has grown more than 20% in the last decade,
and not one new pipeline has been built. Current pipelines are stuffed
and can carry no more supply.”

At the Edison Electric Institute financial conference on November 11,
AEP’s Atkins confirmed that the proposed timeline to cut pollution from
the EPA will shutter coal plants before completion of construction of
new power plants using other fuels, or the infrastructure to move the
needed natural gas around.

The lack of available supply, results in higher prices. The Boston Globe
explains: “gas supplies for home heating are purchased under long-term
contracts arranged far in advance, so utilities have the advantage of
locking in lower rates. Power plants, on the other hand, often buy
shorter-term and are more exposed to price movements in the spot
markets.” In the winter’s cold weather, the gas goes to people’s homes
first. Different from coal, which is shipped by train, with a thirty-day
supply easily held at the point of use, the switch to natural gas
leaves power plants struggling to meet demand, paying higher prices.

Addressing the 2013/2014 winter, Terry Jarrett, a former public service
commissioner and a nationally recognized leader in energy, utility, and
regulatory issues, said: “Natural gas couldn’t shoulder that burden, due
in part to a shortage of infrastructure to deliver gas where it was
needed—this despite record-setting production in the Marcellus Shale and
elsewhere. But more importantly, whereas coal’s sole purpose is to
generate electricity, natural gas is also used for home heating. And
when push comes to shove, heating gets priority over generation.”

Last winter, coal and nuclear met the demand to keep the lights on and
heat homes and businesses. AEP reports that 89 percent of its coal
plants, now slated for retirement, ran at capacity just to meet the peak
demand.

These shortages in the Northeast occur before the implementation of
Obama’s Clean Power Plan that experts believe will shut down hundreds of
coal-fueled power plants nationwide by 2016. New pipelines and new
plants need to be built, but “not-in-my-backyard” attitudes and
environmental activists will probably further delay and prevent
construction as they have done in the Northeast, which will result in
higher electric bills nationwide.

“Because less-expensive coal generation is retiring and in part is being
replaced by demand-response or other potential high energy cost
resources, excess generation will narrow and energy prices could become
more volatile due to the increasing reliance on natural gas for
electricity generation,” PJM’s Kormos told Congress.

The lessons for America’s energy supply learned from the Northeast’s
far-reaching experiment, that has only resulted only in price increases
and potential energy shortages, are twofold. First, don’t shut down
existing supply until the replacement is ready, as legal action and
local attitudes can slow its development. Second, you can cover every
square inch of available land with wind and solar, but when extreme
weather hits, it requires a reliable energy supply, best met by coal and
nuclear.

Current policy direction will have all of America, not just the
Northeast, freezing in the dark. I hope it can it be turned back before
it is too late.

Voters in two states, Colorado and Oregon, defeated GMO labeling at the
ballot box in the November elections. This is the third year in a row
activists who want labels identifying genetically modified foods have
lost state initiatives and referenda.

Voters rejected Colorado’s Proposition 105 with 67 percent of the vote.
Measure 92 in Oregon was a much closer race, with 49 percent of the vote
in support of the initiative.

“The hallmark of the hard left is never to give up on a theme until long
after it is dead…. I expect no let-up,” said Dennis Avery, director of
the Center for Global Food Issues, which studies agriculture and
environmental concerns regarding food production.

“I’m very happy the labeling initiatives in Colorado and Oregon failed
on Election Day, just like prior initiatives in Washington State last
year and California in 2012. But I’m still troubled they’ve attracted as
much support as they have,” Conko added.

GMOs Declared Safe

Avery said the attraction for labeling genetically modified foods has
grown over the last twenty years despite scientific research
demonstrating the safety of genetic modification. Domestic and
international bodies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and
the National Academies of Science, agree GMOs are safe.

Conko notes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration already requires
producers to inform consumers any time a food has been changed in a way
that impacts safety, wholesomeness, nutritional value, or even traits
such as food’s taste, color, or mouth feel beyond the normal range of
what consumers would expect.

Conko pointed out GMO labeling doesn’t actually tell consumers what’s
different about their food. “Its sole purpose is to use scary
terminology to make consumers think there’s something to be concerned
about, when nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.

Opposing Interest Groups

The campaigns pitted environmental activists against major corporations,
including Monsanto Co., Kraft Foods Group Inc., and Coca-Cola Co.

Grassroots campaigns in the two states had hoped to draw support from
young voters. However, opponents don’t agree the so-called activists are
really grassroots groups.

“These labeling initiatives are sometimes characterized by proponents as
arising from grassroots movements, but they are something quite
different: They are funded by self-interested special interests—the
organic agriculture/food industry and the producers of various kinds of
‘natural’ remedies and other products that are nothing more than
modern-day snake oil,” said Henry I. Miller, the Robert Wesson fellow in
scientific philosophy and public policy at the Hoover Institution.

Will the real Gwen Lachelt please step down? That’s no wisecrack, but a
very serious question in Colorado because she’s using a position of
political influence to strategically devastate the state’s petroleum
industry – and saying otherwise.

Lachelt, a La Plata County Commissioner, is a long-time anti-oil and gas
extremist who now co-chairs Democratic Governor John W. Hickenlooper’s
oil and gas task force, a board of environmentalists and industry
supporters convened to recommend drilling policies to the state
legislature, debating key issues including a devastating fracking ban.

Lachelt says, “I have never taken a position to ban fracking” – which is
technically true but realistically unbelievable. I have recorded the
career of Gwen Lachelt and more than 250 other enviro activists since I
wrote Undue Influence in 1999 and established its companion website a
year later.

Take a look at Lachelt’s real history: She organized the Oil and Gas
Accountability Project (originally the Citizens Oil and Gas Support
Center) in 1999 in Durango, Colorado as a project of the rabidly
anti-oil and gas San Juan Citizens Alliance.

Her early OGAP campaign, the Western Coalbed Methane Project attempted
to stop all coalbed methane operations in the American West.

By 2004, Lachelt was so successful as OGAP’s executive director ($42,000
salary) that the ultra-green Seattle-based software millionaire Paul
Brainerd singled her out for a new strategy he had in mind:
“market-based campaigns” to destroy a company’s finance and supply
chain.

Brainerd’s foundation funded OGAP to hold “a workshop to train activists
in Canada and the U.S. and to develop a corporate accountability
campaign targeting one energy corporation that operates in both
countries.”

With these instructions from Brainerd, OGAP and Canada’s Dogwood
Initiative held the September, 2004 workshop for 40 activist leaders
from all over Canada and the U.S., in a Denver venue. The workshop was
titled, Corporate Energy Campaigning: Using financial pressure for
conservation. Follow that link to see how vicious it was.

The corporate campaign was a tactic to destroy companies by targeting
their banking and supplier relations, invented by labor organizer
Raymond F. Rogers, Jr. in 1974 and well known among environmentalists by
the 1980s. By 2008, it had been developed into a sophisticated nuclear
option by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, deployed in their 2008 “Tar
Sands Campaign” with its four-step corporate death march, “Raise the
Negatives, Raise the Costs, Slow Down and Stop Infrastructure, and
Enroll Key Decision Makers.”

Shortly after the OGAP workshop, Brainerd gave a “challenge grant” to
the Washington, D.C.-based Mineral Policy Center (founded 1988), which
had adapted the corporate campaign into an anti-mining tactic called “No
Dirty Gold” under former Greenpeace leader, Steven D’Esposito. Brainerd
directed the Mineral Policy Center to merge with the Oil and Gas
Accountability Project and operate jointly under the new name,
Earthworks. Brainerd lays out his strategy here.

OGAP, as part of Earthworks, aggressively pushed for anti-oil and
gas legislation in New Mexico in 2007, driving a number of oil and gas
firms from the state, including Key Energy Services, which closed its
Farmington, New Mexico natural gas operations in 2008, leaving 700
employees without a job.

Public outrage at Earthworks’ No Dirty Oil and Gas attacks made the name
too shrill – and honest – and was morphed into “No Dirty Energy,” which
it remains to this day.

That’s the real Gwen Lachelt. There’s no evidence that she has had a
“Road to Damascus” persecution epiphany converting her to a moderate
member of Hickenlooper’s oil and gas task force.

The task force itself was the result of a threat by a raging anti-oil
and gas millionaire, Boulder Democrat U.S. Rep. Jared Polis. He accepted
the task force as his price for withdrawing two ballot initiatives he
funded that would have imposed devastatingly expensive restrictions on
Colorado’s petroleum industry if they won. With out-of-state Big Green
political money flooding in to support the initiatives, Hickenlooper
couldn’t risk losing his state’s biggest industry. Thus we got the oil
and gas task force.

Lachelt told The Durango Herald she has never taken a position on
banning hydraulic fracturing but simply supports regulations on
fracking, including under the Safe Drinking Water Act (with its
environmental group lawsuit provisions).

Simply Raise the Negatives, Raise the Costs, Slow Down and Stop
Infrastructure, Enroll Key Decision-Makers. Get rid of the companies and
you get rid of fracking. And a large chunk of Colorado’s economy. She’s
still the Queen of No Dirty Oil and Gas.

Call it the Gruberization of America’s energy and environmental policies.

Former White House medical consultant Jonathan Gruber pocketed millions
of taxpayer dollars before infamously explaining how ObamaCare was
enacted. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he said.
“It was really, really critical to getting the bill passed.” At least
one key provision was a “very clever basic exploitation of the lack of
economic understanding of the American voter.”

The Barack Obama/Gina McCarthy Environmental Protection Agency is
likewise exploiting its lack of transparency and most Americans’ lack of
scientific understanding. EPA bureaucrats and their hired scientists,
pressure groups and PR flacks are getting rich and powerful by
implementing costly, punitive, dictatorial regulations “for our own
good,” and pretending to be honest and publicly spirited.

EPA’s latest regulatory onslaught is its “Clean Power Plan.” The agency
claims the CPP will control or prevent “dangerous manmade climate
change,” by reducing carbon dioxide and “encouraging” greater use of
renewable energy. In reality, as even EPA acknowledges, no
commercial-scale technology exists that can remove CO2 from power plant
emission streams. The real goal is forcing coal-fired power plants to
reduce their operations significantly or (better still) shut down
entirely.

The agency justifies this by deceitfully claiming major health benefits
will result from eliminating coal in electricity generation – and
deceptively ignoring the harmful effects that its regulations are having
on people’s livelihoods, living standards, health and well-being. Its
assertion that reducing the USA’s coal-related carbon dioxide emissions
will make an iota of difference is just as disingenuous. China, India
and other fast-developing nations must keep burning coal to generate
electricity and lift people out of poverty, and CO2 plays only a tiny
(if any) role in climate change and destructive weather events.

The new CPP amplifies Obama Administration diktats targeting coal use.
Companion regulations cover mercury, particulates (soot), ozone,
“cross-state” air pollution, sulfur and nitrogen oxides that contribute
to haze in some areas, and water quality. Their real benefits are
minimal to illusory … or fabricated.

American’s air is clean, thanks to scrubbers and other emission control
systems that remove the vast majority of pollutants. Remaining
pollutants pose few real health problems. To get the results it needs,
EPA cherry picks often questionable research that supports its agenda
and ignores all other studies. It low-balls costs, pays advisors and
outside pressure groups millions of dollars to support its decisions,
and ignores the cumulative effects of its regulations on energy costs
and thus on businesses, jobs and families.

Now, for the first time, someone has tallied those costs. The results are sobering.

An exhaustive study by Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc. tallies the
overall effects of EPA regulations on the electric power industry and
provides state-by-state summaries of the rules’ impacts on residential,
industrial and overall energy users. The study found that EPA rules and
energy markets will inflict $284 billion per year in extra electricity
and natural gas costs in 2020, compared to its 2012 baseline year.

The typical household’s annual electricity and natural gas bills will
rise 35% or $680 by 2020, compared to 2012, and will climb every year
after that, as EPA regulations get more and more stringent. Median
family incomes are already $2,000 lower since President Obama took
office, and electricity prices have soared 14-33% in states with the
most wind power – so these extra costs will exact a heavy additional
toll.

Manufacturing and other businesses will be hit even harder, the study
concluded. Their electricity and natural gas costs will almost double
between 2012 and 2020, increasing by nearly $200 billion annually over
this short period. Energy-intensive industries like aluminum, steel and
chemical manufacturing will find it increasingly hard to compete in
global markets, but all businesses (and their employees) will suffer.

The EVA analysis calculates that industrial electricity rates will soar
by 34% in West Virginia, 59% in Maryland and New York, and a whopping
74% in Ohio. Just imagine running a factory, school district or hospital
– and having to factor skyrocketing costs like that into your budget.
Where do you find that extra money? How many workers or teachers do you
lay off, or patients do you turn away? Can you stay open?

The CPP will also force utility companies to spend billions building new
generators (mostly gas-fired, plus wind turbines), and new transmission
lines, gas lines and other infrastructure. But EPA does not factor
those costs into its calculations; nor does it consider the many years
it will take to design, permit, engineer, finance and build those
systems – and battle Big Green lawsuits over them.

How “science-based” are EPA’s regulations, really? Its mercury rule is
based on computer-generated risks to hypothetical American women who eat
296 pounds of fish a year that they catch themselves, a claim that its
rule will prevent a theoretical reduction in IQ test scores by an
undetectable “0.00209 points,” and similar absurdities. Its PM2.5 soot
standard is equivalent to having one ounce of super-fine dust spread
equally in a volume of air one-half mile long, one-half mile wide and
one story tall.

No wonder EPA has paid its “independent” Clean Air Scientific Advisory
Committee $181 million and the American Lung Association $25 million
since 2000 to rubberstamp its secretive, phony “science.”

Rural America will really be walloped by the total weight of EPA’s
anti-coal regulations. Nonprofit electricity cooperatives serve 42
million people in 47 states, across three-fourths of the nation’s land
area. They own and maintain 42% of America’s electric distribution lines
and depend heavily on coal. They have already invested countless
billions retrofitting coal-fired generators with state-of-the-art
emission control systems, and thus emit very few actual pollutants. (CO2
fertilizes plants; it is not a pollutant.)

EPA’s air and water rules will force these coal units to slash their
electricity generation or close down long before their productive lives
are over – and before replacement units and transmission lines can be
built. Electricity rates in these rural areas are already higher than in
urban areas, but will go much higher. Experts warn that these premature
shutdowns will slash electricity “reserve margins” to almost zero in
some areas, make large sections of the power grid unstable, and create
high risks of rolling blackouts and cascading power outages, especially
in the Texas panhandle, western Kansas and northern Arkansas.

The rules will thus put the cooperatives in violation of the Rural
Electrification Act and 16 other laws that require reliable, affordable
electricity for these far-flung communities. EPA’s actions are also
putting rural hospitals in greater jeopardy, as they try to cope with
“Affordable Care Act” rules and other burdens that have already caused
numerous closings. As USA Today reported, the shuttered hospitals mean
some of the nation’s poorest and sickest patients will be denied
accessible, affordable care – and people suffering strokes, heart
attacks and accidents will not be able to reach emergency care during
their “golden hour,” meaning many of them will die or be severely and
permanently disabled.

EPA never bothered to consider any of these factors. Nor has it
addressed the habitat, bird, bat and other environmental impacts that
tens of thousands more wind turbines will have; the “human health
hazards” that wind turbines have been shown to inflict on people living
near them; or the high electricity costs, notorious unreliability, and
increased power grid instability associated with the wind and solar
installations that EPA seems to think can quickly and magically replace
the coal-based electricity it is eliminating.

Congress, state legislators and attorneys general, governors and courts
need to stop these secretive, duplicitous, dictatorial Executive Branch
actions. Here’s one thought. Heartland Institute Science Director Jay
Lehr helped organize the panel that called for establishing the
Environmental Protection Agency. In a persuasive analysis, he says it’s
time now to systematically dismantle the federal EPA and replace it with
a “committee of the whole” of the 50 state environmental protection
agencies.

The new organization would do a far better job of protecting our air and
water quality, livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare. It
will listen better to We the People – and less to eco-pressure groups.

Via email

Big Wind gusts in lame duck

Congress returns for a lame duck session that is beginning to look like a
regular cornucopia of goodies for all those patient souls on
Washington, D.C.’s K Street who, if they deliver, can expect nice
bonuses to pad their mid-six figure paychecks.

With a bevy of tax credits scheduled to expire on December 31, there
will be a scramble to approve a whole package of so-called tax
extenders. This tax package would in some cases push the life of
these credits out for a few years, and in others, make them
permanent. After all, it is humiliating for those struggling
Silicon Valley venture capitalists to have to grovel before Congress
every couple of years to get their research and development tax credits
when they could be doing something so much more important like pushing
for our nation’s immigration laws to get turned upside down to allow
them to hire cheap labor.

But one tax extender is coming under increasing scrutiny even though its
supporters are some of the biggest blowhards in a town where this
distinction is meaningful — the Wind Production Tax Credit.

That’s right, our government gives the hardscrabble wind energy industry
tax credits so that they can sell the energy they produce to electric
utilities for less than the cost of generating other non-subsidized
electricity generating sources.

If downtrodden companies like Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway did
not receive a tax credit for producing wind what would they do?

Here’s what, Warren — not Jimmy although to wrap your head around this
you may need to be in Margaritaville — had to say, “we get a tax credit
if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them.”

Of course, the Wind Production Tax Credit is really small potatoes, only
costing the U.S. Treasury $13 billion. And with a regular two or
three year renewal timeframe, it is constantly generating revenues for
those ravenous lobbying firms and their latest ingénue who worked as a
driver for a key Member of Congress in his/her first campaign.

So what’s not to like?

With the Wind Production Tax Credit you harm other legitimate
non-subsidized electricity generating sources who apparently are paying
too much attention to their business and not enough to keeping the D.C.
politicians well watered. This creates the fun situation where
stable energy sources get shut down or downsized to accommodate sources
that are dependent upon unstable atmospheric conditions.

Of course, the Wind Production Tax Credit has been in existence since
1992 scrambling along to help this nascent industry which is a 21st
century adaptation of 15th century technology.

And finally, for all those nature haters, those giant blades scything
through the sky have proven to be death traps to more than 600,000 bats
annually which otherwise would be feasting on insects that can be killed
just as easily using pesticides. This is not to mention the Obama
Administration waiver to allow these avian death machines to kill
eagles for the next thirty years without facing a federal government
fine that anyone else would receive.

And to think this important industry would be forced to fend for itself
after December 31, 2014 unless Congress acts during this lame duck
session.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

28 November, 2014

More unsettled science

The journal article below reveals that estimates of Antarctic ice
were way out. The sea ice should be shrinking according to the
famous Warmist "models" but it is in fact expanding. And now we
know that it is not only expanding in area but also thickening in
size. Pesky! So it will be more resistant to global warming
than predicted, if such warming ever eventuates. The findings are
from what they found when they sent a robot sub under the ice.

An explanation
of "deformed" ice: "These thick, craggy floes likely wouldn't
exist without the fierce winds that circle Antarctica from west to east,
the researchers said. Winter storms bash up the ice, freezing and
reforming the rubble into new, thicker ice. "It must have been crunched
up a tremendous amount and [the floes] piled up on top of each other,"
Maksym said"

A telling comment
from one of the researchers: ""If we don't know how much ice is
there is, we can't validate the models we use to understand the global
climate," Maksym told Live Science. "It looks like there are significant
areas of thick ice that are probably not accounted for."

Satellites have documented trends in Antarctic sea-ice extent and its
variability for decades, but estimating sea-ice thickness in the
Antarctic from remote sensing data remains challenging. In situ
observations needed for validation of remote sensing data and sea-ice
models are limited; most have been restricted to a few point
measurements on selected ice floes, or to visual shipboard estimates.
Here we present three-dimensional (3D) floe-scale maps of sea-ice draft
for ten floes, compiled from two springtime expeditions by an autonomous
underwater vehicle to the near-coastal regions of the Weddell,
Bellingshausen, and Wilkes Land sectors of Antarctica. Mean drafts range
from 1.4 to 5.5 m, with maxima up to 16 m. We also find that, on
average, 76% of the ice volume is deformed ice. Our surveys indicate
that the floes are much thicker and more deformed than reported by most
drilling and ship-based measurements of Antarctic sea ice. We suggest
that thick ice in the near-coastal and interior pack may be
under-represented in existing in situ assessments of Antarctic sea ice
and hence, on average, Antarctic sea ice may be thicker than previously
thought.

Just computer games again, of course. But they are giving
themselves a century for it to come true. Pretty safe.
They'll all be dead before they have to answer for being false prophets

Extreme temperatures, flash flooding is set to become far more common
towards the end of the century, a group of respected scientists has
predicted.

Changes in weather patterns globally will make people, especially ageing
populations, far more vulnerable to extreme hot spells, according to a
report published by the Royal Society.

And the experts also predict that the impact of blazing summers will
increase ten-fold by 2100, while the impact of flooding will more than
quadruple over the same period, the report estimates.

Scientists calculated the impact of climate change and population
changes on the chances of people being affected by floods, droughts and
heatwaves around the world.

Extended hot periods like that seen in 2003 - when temperatures soared
to 101°F (38.5°C) and railway tracks buckled in the heat - will become
far more common.

The report focuses on the risks to people from floods, droughts and heatwaves.

Drier parts of the world are expected to get drier and wetter parts, wetter. [How handy!]

Increasing population numbers in areas that are exposed to extreme
weather events exacerbate the risks from floods and droughts in many
regions - especially East, West and Central Africa, India and South-East
Asia.

Over-65s are one of the groups most vulnerable to heatwaves, which could hit the UK and Europe.

Changes in temperature and humidity could
result in significant reductions in ability to work outdoors across
much of Africa, Asia, and parts of North, South and Central America.
This would impact rural communities and food production for a growing
global population.

Scientists adopted a ‘worst case’ scenario by assuming an increase in average temperatures around the world of up to 4.8°C by 2100.

The researchers defined a heatwave as a run of five days during which night-time temperatures are at least 5°C above the norm. [Cripes! By British standards, I live in a heatwave for 6 months of the year at that rate]

Professor Peter Cox, from the University of Exeter - one of the authors
of the Royal Society report, said: ‘We measure exposure to individuals.
That goes up because of more extreme events and because the size of the
vulnerable population increases.

‘Climate change increases the risk to people by a factor of two or three
and population change multiplies that by at least 1.5 and up to four
times in the case of heatwaves.’

The report also found a dramatically increased risk of exposure to
flooding in the UK and parts of western Europe, while the threat of
drought hung over the Mediterranean.

A QUARTER of Canadian polar bears are under threat from global warming: They could be wiped out by shrinking ice caps (?)

Pure long term speculation based on some very complicated climate
modelling procedures and using a worst case scenario. No new
observations of actual bear populations

Images of lonely polar bears seemingly stranded on chunks of drifting
ice have become one of the defining images of global warming. Now
scientists warn that a quarter of Canadian polar bears could be wiped
out by the end of the century because of shrinking ice caps.

Warming temperatures could destroy one tenth of the bear’s habitat,
affecting their ability to roam across huge expanses of ice to hunt for
food.

Biologists from the University of Alberta believe that as summers get
warmer in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago - islands off the North
American continent and Greenland – more permanent ice cover will melt
away every year.

This means that by 2100, each polar bear population in the Archipelago
may have to endure between two and five months of the year without ice
at sea, which would likely lead to starvation and hamper their ability
to mate.

Projected global warming would adversely affect one tenth of their
habitat, which is being damaged by man-made pollution, according to the
study.

It found that sea ice across the Arctic is declining and altering the physical characteristics of marine ecosystems.

Predatory animals are vulnerable to these changes in sea ice conditions
because a smaller amount of sea ice lessens animals' opportunities to
roam across expanses of ice and catch prey.

The study, published in Plos One, used sea ice projections from 2006 to
2100 to gain an insight into the conservation challenges for polar
bears.

Biologist Stephen Hamilton from University of Alberta said: ‘We predict
that nearly one-tenth of the world’s polar bear habitat, as much as
one-quarter of their global population, may undergo significant habitat
loss under business-as-usual climate projections.’

Sea ice across the Arctic is declining and altering physical
characteristics of marine ecosystems. Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) have
been identified as vulnerable to changes in sea ice conditions. We use
sea ice projections for the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from 2006 – 2100
to gain insight into the conservation challenges for polar bears with
respect to habitat loss using metrics developed from polar bear
energetics modeling.

Principal Findings

Shifts away from multiyear ice to annual ice cover throughout the
region, as well as lengthening ice-free periods, may become critical for
polar bears before the end of the 21st century with projected warming.
Each polar bear population in the Archipelago may undergo 2–5 months of
ice-free conditions, where no such conditions exist presently. We
identify spatially and temporally explicit ice-free periods that extend
beyond what polar bears require for nutritional and reproductive
demands.

Conclusions/Significance

Under business-as-usual climate projections, polar bears may face
starvation and reproductive failure across the entire Archipelago by the
year 2100.

Britain’s energy policy is a catastrophic mess that will keep prices high

The story of how the Labour Party destroyed Britain’s system of
financial regulation, launching the ill-fated Financial Services
Authority, is now well known. The tale of how it wrecked the pioneering
energy market painstakingly introduced by its predecessor, a process
tragically continued by the present coalition, is far less well
understood. We should thus be grateful for the latest paper from Reform,
the think tank, which explains exactly how it all went wrong.

The main point is that Britain no longer has a real energy market and
that the Coalition’s reforms are “the biggest expansion of state power
since the nationalisations of the 1940s and 1950s”. Nominally private
companies still generate and deliver electricity that consumers pay for
but just about everything, from prices to outcomes, are now heavily
determined by politicians.

The author, Rupert Darwall, finds that the result is a “vast ramshackle
Public Private Partnership combining the worst of all worlds – state
direction of investment funded by high cost private sector finance”.
Devastatingly, as he notes cogently, almost all sorts of generation that
currently take place in Britain – be it zero, low or high carbon – now
benefits from handouts or various kinds of price supports.

The unfashionable truth is that the privatisation of the electricity
industry in the 1980s and the introduction of genuine competition in the
1990s was a triumph. The real hero was Lord Lawson of Blaby, energy
secretary in the 1980s. The system evolved and improved over time, with a
key duopoly eventually broken up, with the pro-competition drive led by
Stephen Littlechild, the brilliant economist who was in charge of
energy regulation in the 1990s. Prices fell significantly, delivering
large benefits to consumers and companies and helping to deliver a
significant boost to competitiveness.

The rot really set in when Tony Blair decided in 2007 to impose a target
that a predetermined proportion of energy would be generated from
renewable energy, mainly wind and solar. Ed Miliband’s influence on the
UK’s energy policy during his time in government was also catastrophic.
The return of regulation was helped by the fact that energy prices had
started to rise again for the first time in years, and the increase was
blamed (entirely wrongly) on privatisation and markets. Paradoxically,
the interventions of the Labour and coalition years seem almost designed
to dramatically hike prices.

The Labour reforms ended the free market that had been introduced by the
Tories and which had worked far better than many people realised at the
time. The green quotas meant that the Government had to retake control
of all electricity generation: given that it started to subsidise
heavily certain forms of electricity, it also had to create artificial
incentives to make that enough investment remained in other sources,
rigging other markets, too.

It’s all a giant mess. The Government believes that a “fully competitive
and open electricity market” will only be reintroduced in 2028. Unless
we return to one much sooner, we will condemn ourselves to falling
living standards, gross inefficiencies and a monumental misallocation of
resources. Let us hope that the next government sees sense.

Think it's unusally warm outside? Then you must be left-wing: Climate
change beliefs affect how we perceive the weather, study claims

If you don't believe in climate change, you're less likely to feel that
the weather is getting warmer - and vice versa. That's according to a
study that analysed how people remembered a particularly warm winter in
the US in 2012.

And they found those who believed in climate change remembered it being warmer, while those who didn't thought it was colder.

The research, published in Nature Climate Change, was carried out by
three US sociologists - , Dr Aaron McCright of Michigan State
University, Dr Riley Dunlap of Oklahoma State, and Dr Chenyang Xiao of
American University.

They studied how people remembered the erroneously warm winter of 2012,
which was the fourth warmest on record for the US of the previous 117
winters.

During the winter, the seasonal average was about 1.9°C (3.9°F) above the 20th century average.

The researchers compared data from Gallup polls in early March 2012
after the winter ended with temperature data from the US, reports the
Washington Post.

Most correctly said that the weather had been unusual, with those in more affected areas noticing the conditions more.

But those with certain political and scientific beliefs had differing views on how severe the changes had been.

'Democrats [were] more likely than Republicans to perceive local winter
temperatures as warmer than usual,' the researchers wrote.

Liberals and women were also more likely than conservatives and males to
attribute the warmer-than-normal local winter temperatures to global
warming.

The results suggest that, apart from actual science, people's view on climate change can be skewed by their beliefs.

Australia: Green Party leader trying to hang on to renewable energy target

Greens leader Christine Milne has reached out to key crossbench senators to try to save the renewable energy target.

Senator Milne has sent three personalised letters to RET fence-sitters
Jacqui Lambie, Nick Xenophon and Ricky Muir, detailing the impact
scaling back the target would have on their states.

In one letter, she appeals to fellow Tasmanian, Senator Lambie, to help
drive investment in renewable energy or face "economic pain, higher
unemployment and social dislocation".

Senator Lambie has pushed for hydro to be included in the RET, claiming
the target disproportionately affects Tasmanians - who predominantly run
on hydro-electricity.

"I fear you have been misled by industries that have a financial
interest in destroying Tasmania's emerging industries," Senator Milne
writes.

The government wants to slash the target of 41,000 gigawatt hours to
about 27,000, claiming that figure will represent 27 per cent of energy
use by 2020 instead of the bipartisan level of 20 per cent.

Senator Milne's letters, obtained by AAP, follow a crossbench plan to include existing hydro and solar projects in the RET.

The proposal - spearheaded by Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm - would
mean no significant new investment in renewable energy would be needed
to meet the target.

It comes amid industry uncertainty prompted by a breakdown in major party negotiations.

Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer - with two Senate seats - is
committed to maintaining the target, leaving Senator Muir and Senator
Xenophon as crucial votes to pass the proposal if the government signs
on.

Senator Milne claims including existing hydro in the target would cost
households and would not reduce emissions nor drive new investment - a
key aim of the policy.

"In other words, it would be all-pain for no gain," she writes to Senator Muir.

The Clean Energy Council believes the proposal would hand $13.5 billion
to existing hydro power at the expense of much of the planned $14.5
billion of investment in new large-scale renewable energy.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

27 November, 2014

The Ethanol Mandate Proves the Government Is a Poor Central Planner

The federal government’s mandate to require Americans to use expensive,
inefficient biofuels is so broken and dysfunctional it can’t even decide
the ideal target amount of production.

On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency again announced that it
would not determine the amount of ethanol and biofuels required to be
mixed into every American’s fuel tank for 2014 by the Energy
Independence and Security Act. In 2005, Congress mandated that
alternative fuels, primarily corn-based ethanol, progressively be added
to gasoline and diesel and that the EPA annually adjust the targets
originally set by Congress as needed. Now that 2014 is almost over, the
EPA has failed again to clarify the standards. Friday’s non-decision
should remind us again of some of the reasons why it’s high time
Congress repeal what some have accurately labeled a “Soviet-style
production quota system” for the nation’s fuel supply.

1. The Renewable Fuel Standard hurts drivers, eaters, taxpayers and the
environment. Because of the RFS, Americans have to pay more for fuel
than they normally would without the mandate, and the fuel they put in
their tanks is less energy efficient because ethanol isn’t as energy
dense. Further, the increased demand for corn for use in ethanol
increases the price of corn by as much as 68 percent, which affects not
only Americans but the world, because corn is a staple food in many
countries as well as a staple feed for livestock. In addition, ethanol
has proven to be harmful to smaller engines.

Although environmental organizations initially supported the mandate to
reduce oil use and greenhouse gas emissions, many now argue that the
ethanol mandate is poor environmental policy. When radical
environmentalists and free-market groups, the UN, motorcyclists,
ranchers, anti-poverty groups, restaurants and others agree on
something, maybe it’s time to listen.

2. The system is broken and full of uncertainty. The EPA was supposed to
have published a proposed set of standards in September 2013 and
finalized in November so that industry/refineries could plan for the
following year. Through a series of delays and extensions, the final
standards came out only last week.

Imagine if a teacher required students to regularly turn in homework and
take tests but told students the grading scale hadn’t been determined
yet. Imagine further that while the teacher promised to produce the
grading scale before school started, she hadn’t yet developed it with
two months of school left to go. Parents would be up in arms and
students would be worried that their efforts might not have been enough
and would cost them dearly. The teacher would rightly be fired.

But Congress continues to let a similar “teacher”—the EPA—carry on with a
broken system which Congress itself created. Those in favor of the
mandate are quick to say it creates “market certainty.” It’s hard to see
how that is the case.

3. Unmet targets indicate why the federal government is a poor central
planner. In fact, some targets have been missed by a long shot. The EPA
routinely has had to keep cellulosic biofuel targets well below what
Congress stipulated because the technology to turn corn refuse into fuel
isn’t economically viable. Congress’s target for 2013 was to have 1
billion gallons in the nation’s fuel supply; in its 2013 revised target
the EPA only mandated 6 million—less than 1 percent of the original
target.

On the other hand, there is “too much” ethanol. Congress anticipated
Americans would be driving a lot more than they are. In addition,
because older or smaller vehicles can safely handle only a certain
proportion of ethanol, we have run up against what some call a “blend
wall” where the market has no outlet for more ethanol. When not enough
of the cellulosic ethanol is produced, the EPA fines refineries and when
there is the potential for too much ethanol or biodiesel, the EPA
stamps down demand.

4. Only politically connected groups benefit from the RFS. A handful of
organizations stand to benefit from the RFS such as corn and soybean
growers, ethanol refiners, plant-based ethanol producers, and the
politicians who get their votes. In fact, it appears that the string of
delays for the 2014 standards occurred because the agriculture and
ethanol lobbying arms were unhappy that the EPA originally proposed to
cut the ethanol requirement for the first time in the mandate’s
existence. But the RFS is a clear case of concentrated benefits to a
handful of connected industries at the expense of the rest of America
and the environment.

To make matters worse, the mandate stifles competition and growth in the
alternative fuels industry. Instead of relying on a process that
rewards competition and innovation, the mandate guarantees a market for
the ethanol producers’ product and prevents the industry from achieving
the price point at which the technology will be economically viable.
When the government plays favorites, it traps valuable resources in
unproductive places.

The path forward to remove favoritism and provide market opportunities
for competition and innovation is to remove those policies that create
those incentive structures. Congress should repeal the Renewable Fuel
Standard.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican once perceived as a
moderate who favored bipartisan lawmaking back when that was still a
thing in the GOP, has been talking recently about how his party needs a
real climate change policy. And with stories rife this morning that
Arizona Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain is urging
him to run for president in 2016, Graham is going to have to figure out
how to rein his party’s climate deniers.

“I think there will be a political problem for the Republican Party
going into 2016 if we don’t define what we are for on the environment,”
said Graham. “I don’t know what the environmental policy of the
Republican Party is.”

But with incoming Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell promising to
fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline and gut the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), it seems like they may actually have one—just
not one that will help Graham’s cause, or the climate. And a bill
offered up by departing Texas Congressman Steve Stockman, who did not
run for reelection, adds fuel to the climate-denier fire.

You may remember Stockman as the Congressman in the Jon Stewart climate
denier segment who grilled a testifying scientist about why climate
change predictions did not take into account “global wobbling,”
something that has nothing to do with the climate. His new bill is more
of the same. Stockman has introduced H.B. 5718 or the “Stockman
Effect Act,” (its official name in the Congressional Record) “to study
the effect of the Earth’s magnetic field on the weather.”

It says, “Congress finds as follows: (1) Prior to a magnetic polar
shift, there is a decline in the Earth’s magnetic fields. (2) Decrease
in magnetic fields could impact global temperatures. (3) There is a
possibility that the reason Mars lost its atmosphere was because of the
loss of its magnetic field. (b) Magnetic Field Study. The director of
the National Science Foundation shall commission a study on the impact
that a shift in the Earth’s magnetic field could have on the weather.”

Alas, Congress is not a scientific body and Stockman is not a scientist.
(He was formerly a computer salesman). And there is no “Stockman
Effect,” at least none relating the the climate.

According to National Journal reporter Jason Plautz, “The bill doesn’t
explicitly mention global warming, but would put Congress on record as
saying that a ‘decrease in magnetic fields could impact global
temperatures’ and instructs the director of the National Science
Foundation to commission a study on the impact a shift in the Earth’s
magnetic field could have on the weather. Scientists contacted by
National Journal said they weren’t aware of a “Stockman Effect” related
to geophysics or climate change.”

“But scientists say that the long-term changes in the magnetic field
make it unlikely that it’s causing the rapid warming,” wrote Plautz.
“Bob McPherron, a professor of space physics at the University of
California Los Angeles, said the possible link was ‘very tenuous’ and
that most of the science behind it is not well understood. A 2011 NASA
publication noted that polarity reversals are ‘the rule, not the
exception’ and said that fossils from the last reversal 780,000 years
ago showed no change to plant or animal life or glacial activity.”

Former South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis, who served in the House
with Graham in the late ’90s and early ’00s and later founded the Energy
and Enterprise Initiative to take on the daunting task of convincing
conservatives to act on climate change, told Roll Call he agrees with
Graham.

“If conservatives plan on winning the White House back, we’ve got to
have something on the menu that addresses this felt need for action on
climate,” he said.

As this is being written, all fifty states have freezing weather and
nearly a month before the winter solstice on December 21 some
northeastern cities are buried in record-setting snowfalls.

At what point will the public conclude that virtually everything that we
have been told about “global warming” and “climate change” by the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) as well as U.S.
government agencies we’re supposed to trust has been bogus, based on
computer models, none of which have proven to be accurate?

At what point will the public conclude that climate, a perfectly natural
phenomenon so vast and so powerful, is being exploited in order to
transfer large amounts of money from wealthy nations to those who are
not? It is redistribution of wealth on a global scale. That is the
primary reason for the U.N. climate fund. A total of $9.3 billion has
been pledged by several nations.

My friend, Marc Morano, said this about the U.N. Green Climate Fund:
'It’s going to be a giant green slush fund of money distributed by the
U.N. through political patronage system. It’s all designed to make
climate an issue that every government has to pay attention to.”

“This is a new political party—if you will—the climate party, and it’s
demanding a lot of fees and it’s demanding a lot of spending. The
U.N. bureaucracy loves to spend money, loves to have scandals, loves to
empower themselves. So this is all about empowering UN bureaucrats,
diplomats and delegates and the UN’s own sense of self importance.”

Morano is the Communications Director for the Committee For A
Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and executive editor and chief
correspondent for the award-winning ClimateDepot.com, a global warming
and eco-news center founded in 2009. He has been on the front line of
combating the lies told about global warming and climate change for many
years.

I have been an advisor to CFACT over the years, sharing information that
has consistently debunked what I regard as the greatest hoax of the
modern era.

The worst part of the hoax was and is the billions that have been
squandered on the bogus, useless “scientific” studies intended to keep
it going. Then there have been billions more spent on the near useless
“renewable” energy projects that have only demonstrated that wind
turbines kill hundreds of thousands of birds and solar farms have the
same affect. The electricity they produce is minimal and so
unpredictable it requires the backup of traditional fossil-fueled energy
plants.

The near total lack of the impact of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s
atmosphere on its climate has not stopped the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency from using carbon dioxide as justification for issuing
a torrent of regulations that are crippling the provision of energy
nationwide, attacking private property rights, and slowing the growth of
our economy.

Thanks to Mother Nature, Americans and others around the world
experiencing the 19-year-old cooling cycle the Earth has been in are
beginning to realize that humans have nothing to do with causing climate
change.

Sadly, too many world leaders, including our own, keep talking about
climate change as if it was something we can influence by a reduction of
“greenhouse gas” emissions. That’s just another way of saying use less
energy.

The world leaders are wrong. Some are just flat out lying.

Editor's Note:

"According to Weatherbell: More than 85% of the surface area of the
Lower 48 reached or fell below freezing Tuesday morning, November 18.
All 50 states saw at or below freezing temperatures that day.

Boston.com reported 1,360 daily low maximum records were set,
meaning those 1,360 cities and towns saw their coldest daily highs
ever recorded. In addition, snow covered more than 50 percent of the
country, more than twice the coverage the U.S. usually experiences in
mid-November CNN reported areas in Buffalo, New York, among other cities
along the Great Lakes, experienced a year’s snow in just three days."

“What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the
widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader
Dick Armey put it this way; "Demagoguery beats data." Thomas Sowell

The pest control industry seems to be faced with the same problem. We're
constantly told how we have to restrict pesticide use. We are told we
must find alternatives to what we're using. We're told we must adopt
“least toxic” (whatever that means) pest control programs.

Why?

Because they claim that pesticides may affect our health and the
environment adversely. This isn’t only from the environmental
activists outside of government. It's also the constant refrain
from those environmental activists within the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).

It costs about three hundred million dollars to bring a pesticide to
market - are we to assume that we don’t know what all the potential
effects these products may have on people and the environment? Actually -
yes! We aren’t allowed to test people, so we don’t really know what any
product will do, whether it's pesticides or automobiles, until it is in
common use. With pesticides ultimately the final testing ground will be
agriculture.

In years gone by the structural pest control industry used far more
liquid pesticides than we do now, and we were only using 4% of all the
pesticides manufactured, liquids only being a part of that percentage.
Four percent doesn’t make much money when the cost of testing is so
high. Therefore any pesticide manufactured must be manufactured for use
on corn, tobacco, cotton, rice, wheat, soybeans, etc. or it isn’t
manufactured. We've changed what we're using in structural pest control
dramatically over the last thirty years, we did so because of efficacy.
We shifted to a higher reliance to baits for cockroaches and ants
because of their effectiveness. However we must understand - if a
pesticide is used in structural pest control it is because it has been
used profitably elsewhere and for some time. We get it last.

New technology in structural pest control is usually old technology
everywhere else where pesticides are needed and used. So what must we
conclude from that? If these products have been used extensively, and
for some time, then the effect on people and the environment must
absolutely be known to EPA.

So what then must we conclude from that? Logically we can only
conclude they don’t care what the facts are. They've apparently made up
their minds to advocate the same view as the environmental activists and
are not going to let facts stand in the way. These "Sue and
Settle" lawsuits, which is nothing short of illegal collusion between
environmentalists and government bureaucrats, gives clear evidence
of that. Between regulators, activists, universities,
researchers, self serving politicians, and a compliant media, they
have managed to keep the public ignorant and frightened through
“filtered facts” which has now given the completely opposite view of
what is actually occurring.

Their answer to any criticism is that we must adopt IPM or "green" pest
control, which cannot be truly defined. Name one thing you know for sure
about IPM! Everybody has their own perception as to what it means, what
products can be used, what techniques should be used, where and when
they should be used if ever. This will always be debated because IPM is
an “ideology, not a methodology” and "green" is nothing short of
neo-pagan mysticism.

If these products are so dangerous and EPA has the authority to remove
products that are harmful from the market, and they have traced the
results of use of these products over the years - why don’t they do it?
They clearly have the power and they certainly have the desire -
why don’t they do it? It is quite simple - the facts must not support
such an action.

Why are they promoting IPM to the tune of thousands of dollars a year in
the form of grant money? Is it because there are no facts to support
the elimination of these products and no matter how many times they
change the rules (Food Quality Protection Act is one example along with
re-registration requirements) to make it impossible to use pesticides
they still can’t find the science to support the ban of pesticides, so
they attempt to do it through a back door called IPM, organic or green
pest control. And why IPM or green pest control? Because if
there's no alternative there's no problem. IPM and Green Pest
Control are their representatives of an alternative.

The public is constantly told by the media that pesticides cause every
conceivable malady. When it is discovered they're wrong or the
facts were deliberately perverted - as in the Alar case - it's passed
off as journalism. The activists jump up and down swearing it was good
journalism. The media jumps up and down defending their right to say
what they want no matter what the real truth is and no matter who is
hurt, and as in the Alar case, refusing to publicly acknowledge their
misconduct.

What are the facts regarding pesticides. There is no evidence that
pesticides have adversely effected the general health of the population!
In fact, if you compared the world before modern pesticides and today
we find that we are better fed and healthier than ever in this nation’s
history or any other nation that has adopted extensive pesticide use.
Only the countries who are unable or unwilling to adopt modern practices
suffer the consequences of dystopia; poverty, misery, disease, squalor,
hunger, starvation and early death.

There has been a great deal of talk regarding trace amounts of chemicals
in our waters and land, and even trace amounts of over 200 manmade
chemicals in our bodies. So what? This must be a good thing since the
advent of these products people are living longer and healthier lives.
The appearance of chemicals has nothing to do with toxicity. It's the
dose makes the poison, not it's presence, and there are toxic chemicals
necessary for good health which appear in detectable trace amounts in
our bodies.

Still we have educated individuals teaching (and being taught) in our
schools and universities that manmade chemicals are the great evil and
we need to go "green" or “all-natural” or “organic”. Whatever those
terms mean! I love the claim that things are "chemical
free". Let's get our heads on right about chemicals.
The universe - including you - is made up of chemicals - if it's
chemical free it doesn't exist.

Most people have been misled into thinking that "organic" foods are
healthier, and "organic" food is pesticide free. That's blatantly
false! As far as the claim they taste better - taste is subjective
and in point of fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Note the following information by Dr. Bruce Ames.

Dr. Bruce Ames (a biochemistry professor at the University of
California) pointed out in 1987 that we ingest in our diet about 1.5
grams per day of {natural} pesticides. Those foods contain 10,000 times
more, by weight, of {natural} pesticides than of man-made pesticide
residues. More than 90% of the pesticides in plants are produced
{naturally} by the plants, which help protect them from insects, mites,
nematodes, bacteria, and fungi. Those natural pesticides may make up 5%
to 10% of a plant's dry weight, and nearly half of them that were tested
on experimental animals were carcinogenic. Americans should therefore
feel unconcerned about the harmless, infinitesimal traces of synthetic
chemicals to which they may be exposed. The highly publicized traces of
synthetic pesticides on fruits and vegetables worried some people so
much that they began to favor ``organically produced'' foods, thinking
that they would not contain any pesticides. Most people are not aware
that organic gardeners can legally use a great many pesticides, so long
as they are not man-made. They can use nicotine sulfate, rotenone, and
pyrethrum (derived from plants), or any poisons that occur naturally,
such as lime, sulfur, borax, cyanide, arsenic, and fluorine.

This apparently is OK because its “natural”. Chemicals are chemicals and
guess what - they all have chemical names. If I presented you the
following menu would you eat it? By the way, these foods are known
carcinogens.

For those that read the chemicals listed above you will notice that some
of them are repeated a number of times. I deliberately left the list in
that way because you are getting a multiple dose in the above
Thanksgiving meal.

Does that sound so bad now? It is unfortunate that so many in positions
of authority and responsibility continue to allow filtered facts to
become the conventional wisdom. More importantly it is impossible for
any society to make intelligent long term decisions when preconceived
notions are allowed to dictate what “facts” will be allowed to be
presented. Then again, facts are confusing and that certainly is the
last thing the public needs, after all it is the last thing the
environmentalists and their minions want. It might interfere with all
those scares they are constantly presenting as eminent disasters. That
in turn would foul up contributions and then the greatest disaster of
them all would occur. They would have to go out and get real jobs.

All of this is disturbing, but what I find most disturbing is the
unwillingness of our industry's information deliverers - the trade
journals and trade associations - to stand up to these people and
publish the truth. When we fail to stand up and be counted we're
appeasers and enablers. Eventually that will turn us into traitors
to our own industry.

(BHP is one of the world's biggest miners -- Particularly in coal and iron)

The climate-friendly bonhomie of BHP Billiton’s Chairman, Jac Nasser,
didn’t last long into question time at the company’s annual general
meeting in Adelaide late last week.

Ahead of the AGM BHP had gone to great lengths to buff its climate
policy credentials. In his opening speech Nasser even addressed climate
change before discussing the state of the global economy.

However, when asked whether the company would continue to invest in
thermal coal assets Nasser testily declared that there is no “realistic
alternative” to the ongoing use of coal in power stations.

Aviva Imhof, representing her father and a number of other shareholders,
had initially congratulated the board on their recent in acknowledging
the seriousness of climate change and the implications of it for the
company. [Disclosure: Ms Imhof is a work colleague]

“Will BHP Billiton rule out new investments in thermal coal? Do you
believe that your existing investments in thermal coal risk becoming
stranded assets due to the need to limit global warming to below 2
degrees Celsius?,” she asked Nasser.

“It’s ‘no’ and ‘no’,” Nasser said. “Do you have any other questions?,” he bluntly asked.

She did. “So, given that the IPCC and the global consensus is that up to
80% of fossil fuels need to remain in the ground if we are to limit
global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, how could you justify
additional investments in thermal coal?,” she asked.

Nasser reiterated that the company accepts the IPCC’s assessment of
climate science. He argued that the company believed in the need to
pursue a twin objectives of limiting climate change and track and
providing for growing energy needs for development.

“You have to be realistic. The realistic side of this is that there are
no real alternatives for the growing demand of energy over the next
decade,” he said.

Imhof was stunned: “I’m really surprised to hear you say that Mr
Chairman, given the absolutely astronomic decline in the price of solar
and wind and other renewables. Solar is reaching grid parity in at least
16 markets around …”.

Nasser tersely interjected. “Ms Imhof, it’s not us, it’s the IPCC.”

“Yes and the IPCC say there has to be no investments in high-carbon
infrastructure after 2017 if we are going to keep within two degrees of
global warming. So it seems to me that if you say you are not going to
rule out further investments in thermal coal you are not taking your
commitment to climate change seriously,” she responded.

While Nasser was asserting there was no alternative to thermal coal last
Thursday, an investor presentation briefing released on Monday morning
indicated that the company is acutely aware of the declining financial
performance of thermal coal and its vulnerability to energy competition.

In one slide (page 31) BHP Billiton states that energy growth will
continue but concedes that “the shape of future energy demand mix is
difficult to predict.” While the BHP Billiton code is cautious, the
implication is clear: that at least in part, the growth of renewables
and efficiency are posing a threat to thermal coal.

This is as good as confirmed when in another slide (page 33) the company refers to ‘energy coal’ as being “contestable.”

Another slide (page 48) charts the contribution of the company’s coal
division to earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) plummeting from
approximately 14 per cent in 2010 to approximately two percent in the
space of five years.

In an accompanying note, BHP Billiton laments that the thermal coal
market “remains well supplied” which is “prolonging the weaker pricing
environment.” While demand it says “remains steady”, it soberly notes
that prices will languish longer until further mines close.

As for the coal industry’s long touted silver bullet of Carbon Capture
and Storage, in his speech Nasser would only go so far as to state that
it is “exploring opportunities” to invest in the technology.

(BOM: "The Australian Climate Observations Reference Network –
Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) dataset has been developed for
monitoring climate variability and change in Australia. The dataset
employs the latest analysis techniques and takes advantage of newly
digitised observational data to provide a daily temperature record over
the last 100 years")

This is the second episode in the Cobar ACORN-SAT series examining BoM
adjustments to the CDO [Climate Data Online] temperature data – here I
start to look at adjustments to minimum temperatures. The 1st episode
looked at maximum temperatures.

A list of ACORN adjustments to Cobar data is here and you can see the
first min adjustment listed is 1st Jan 1972 meaning the adjustment
factor applies to all data earlier than that. You will see it is
labelled as “Statistical” meaning there is no evidence for it in station
diaries or admin records but it derives from computer driven
comparisons sifting data differences from multiple stations as far away
as Parkes and Hillston – see map. In this case of the 4th adjustment the
following stations data was used.

Making the chart of Cobar annual minimum temperatures compared to
ACORN-SAT my eye was caught by the adjustment starting in 2006 and
affecting all earlier years which I have marked with a blue 6.

That is unlisted in the ACORN-SAT documentation and is substantial at
about -0.4 degrees C. The slight mismatch between Cobar Met Office and
ACORN from 2007-2013 is due to rounding differences because I have made
my ACORN annuals by averaging a year of daily data which I leave as
produced by Excel with multiple decimal places.

The next adjustment to look for is at 1971 where I have the blue 4,
which is the 4th adjustment in the ACORN list and is listed at -0.49
degrees C. The increased departure of ACORN cooler than Met Office to
about -0.9 is obvious on the chart.

Examining this adjustment in greater detail I have made a chart
comparing Cobar MO and ACORN version with nearest neighbours Bourke,
Wilcannia and Nyngan. The average difference between the 1971 & 1972
readings for these 3 stations is +0.2 at Cobar MO, +0.4 at Bourke PO,
+0.4 at Nyngan, and -0.4 at Wilcannia, an average for the 3 Cobar
neighbours of +0.13, not very different from the +0.2 that we know
happened at Cobar Met Office.

But instead of leaving the higher quality Cobar Met Office readings well
alone – what does the BoM decide to do with their adjustment #4? They
take off 0.49° making the 1971-1972 difference now 0.7 – greater by 0.3
than any of the neighbours. Presumably the BoM justify this by their
computer driven comparisons with sites as distant as Parkes.

If the reasons for an adjustment can not be seen in nearest neighbours
then it must be an exercise in fantasy to search for a reason in a
cherry picked array of more distant stations which are all of poorer
quality than Cobar Met Office.

It is interesting to check the differences in annual minimums between
Cobar Met Office and Cobar Airport which are only about 7 or 8 km apart.
You might expect them to be very similar and in lockstep – not so from
the chart.

Note the BoM never refer to Cobar Airport data in ACORN-SAT – but we are free to check it out.

First there is no evidence here of a step or jump around 2006 – 2007.

While there are such wildly varying and apparently random differences
between these two very adjacent sites – what on earth can the BoM learn
by comparing Cobar with Parkes – or indeed any other station in their
adjustments list.

These are the sort of unsafe foundations that pro-IPCC climate science is based on.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

She pressed a small speaker that looked like an old
transistor radio up to one ear while holding a sensor to the turtle’s
neck.

Sattman tried to parse out the heartbeat from the
white noise crackling from the speaker, and the roar of a heater
struggling to keep the barn, set up as a turtle triage center on Friday,
at 55 degrees.

“Any time buddy,” she urged. “Show them that you’re living.”

The count of recovered cold-stunned turtles was 520
on Friday, well past the 2012 record of 413. With survival rates at 80
percent, the sheer numbers of this year’s strandings taxed Audubon
sanctuary staff and volunteers and overwhelmed the capacity of the New
England Aquarium’s Quincy Animal Care Center, which can handle 70
turtles comfortably, and 120 in a pinch.

On Thursday, the aquarium was able to transport 20
turtles from Quincy to the National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay
and another 31 were flown to a turtle rehab hospital in Georgia and to
the South Carolina Aquarium. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration fisheries staff were also working to arrange air
transport for those animals that had been stabilized.

The Quincy facility took 70 Friday, but with hundreds
sitting in crates awaiting transport and treatment, the aquarium sent
veterinarian Leslie Neville to Wellfleet Friday to begin treatment.

The metabolism of hypothermic sea turtles can be so
depressed that their heartbeat slows to as low as one beat per hour.

It can be hard to tell the dead from the living, but
No. 491, a 5-pound Kemp’s ridley taken off Cold Storage Beach in Truro
on Thursday, had a heart that was virtually racing at 12 beats per
minute. He, or she, (it’s hard to tell the sex of juveniles) was
returned to a towel-lined banana crate, then loaded into volunteer
driver Dave Horton’s car for the trip to Quincy.

By the late afternoon, aquarium and Audubon staffs
were setting up kiddie pools, filling them with water to rehydrate and
gradually warm up the turtles. Sattman and Neville recorded statistics
like heartbeat and weight that would help speed the process when the
turtles reached Quincy.

What happens when you spend billions on useless windmills. The windmills don't even rate a mention below

Britain’s plans to keep the lights on this winter have been thrown into
fresh doubt after a power plant supposed to provide back-up electricity
supplies failed during testing.

The Peterhead gas-fired station in northern Scotland was unable to
generate power as expected during a test last week, it has emerged.

The plant, owned by energy giant SSE, was one of three power stations
handed a contract last month by National Grid to be paid to guarantee
they could fire up if needed, as part of emergency measures to prevent
blackouts.

The plans were drawn up after a series of power plant closures eroded
Britain’s spare electricity generation capacity – the safety buffer
between peak supply and demand – to wafer-thin levels.

The three back-up power plants recruited under the emergency plans were
supposed to guarantee they would be available if required between 6am
and 8pm on weekdays from November to February.

But Peterhead, a 32-year old plant with 780-megawatt capacity,
unexpectedly failed to produce required power levels last Thursday
during a monthly "proving" test.

“We are in the process of discussing what did go wrong,” a spokesman for National Grid said.

Both SSE and National Grid declined to disclose details of the fault or to confirm whether it had now been fixed.

Dan Lewis, senior energy policy adviser at the Institute of Directors, said the failure was "worrying".

“There’s just no margin for error," he said. "When we are up against
tighter and tighter margins inevitably things start to trip up. You
don’t need many cold days to put yourself in a difficult position.”

One industry source claimed Peterhead had simply failed to generate
power at all during the test, while Utility Week, which first disclosed
the failure, reported that power unexpectedly dropped from 780MW to
zero, citing National Grid data.

“They should have awarded the contract to a more reliable plant,” one UK power trader told the publication.

National Grid’s spokesman said the company did not recognise the specific power output figures cited by Utility Week.

But they added: “The reason to do tests is to ensure this kind of thing doesn’t happen when you actually need them.”

National Grid’s spokesman added that SSE could face penalty charges if Peterhead “doesn’t function as it should”.

The disclosure of the problem at Peterhead highlights the fragility of
Britain’s energy system heading into this winter as its ageing power
plant fleet suffers unexpected shutdowns.

Peter Atherton, energy analyst at Liberum Capital, described the test failure as “embarrassing”.

Peterhead had functioned as expected in a previous test earlier this
month. The two other power plants recruited to the scheme have also both
been functioning in recent weeks.

As well as the back-up power plants, National Grid has also brought in
emergency measures to pay industrial businesses to power down or switch
to diesel generators from 4pm to 8pm on winter weekdays.

Fires at Ferrybridge and Ironbridge power plants had already eroded
Britain’s spare capacity more than had been expected this winter and
safety outages at four nuclear reactors worsened the situation.

However, two of the four nuclear reactors have now resumed operation with a third due to do so in coming days.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “This
Government has a plan to keep the lights on now, and into the future,
thanks to the new powers we have given to National Grid and investment
in the UK’s energy infrastructure.

“National Grid undertakes these proving tests in order to be certain
that plants are able to provide extra generating capacity when called
upon.

"Peterhead is one of three plants who have been contracted to provide
extra generation over the winter months if needed, while a number of
other power units which were previously out of service have also begun
the process of resuming generation.”

Doing an environmentally good deed gives you a warm feeling - quite
literally. Psychologists found that when volunteers thought they
were helping the environment their perception of temperature
changed. It was as if they were enveloped in a "warm glow", said
the scientists.

People classed as environmentally "friendly" estimated the temperature
around them to be around 1C higher than those led to believe their
behaviour was environmentally "unfriendly".

The report authors, led by Danny Taufik, from the University of
Griningen in the Netherlands, wrote in the journal Nature Climate
Change: "Acting environmentally friendly boosts a person's self-concept,
which is reflected in a literal warm glow.

"We also explored whether physical warmth (skin temperature) is affected
by acting environmentally friendly, but we found no consistent evidence
for this."

Students taking part in the study completed a questionnaire about their
carbon footprint, and were told that lower scores indicated
environmentally friendly behaviour.

They were then given a fake carbon footprint score for the "average" student, against which their own scores were compared.

Participants were also asked to guess the temperature of the room in which they were sitting.

Those whose carbon footprints appeared to be more environmentally
friendly than average rated the room significantly warmer than students
whose scores were less friendly.

The researchers concluded that helping the environment was intrinsically
rewarding, which was something that should be recognised by "green"
campaigns.

For instance, informing people they could help protect the environment
by unplugging unused electronic devices may be a better strategy than
telling them it will save money.

Future research could explore the extent to which acting in an
environmentally friendly way might influence warmth-related behaviours
such as setting central heating thermostats, said the scientists.

They added that other work had shown a negative psychological state
caused by feeling lonely resulted in lower perceived temperatures, and
also prompted people to take warmer showers "presumably to make one feel
better

Pleistocene glaciers repeatedly buried almost half of the Northern
Hemisphere under a mile of ice. The Medieval Warm Period (~950-1250 AD)
enriched agriculture and civilizations across Asia and Europe, while the
Little Ice Age that followed (~1350-1850) brought widespread famines
and disasters. The Dust Bowl upended lives and livelihoods for millions
of Americans, while decades-long droughts vanquished once-thriving
Anasazi and Mayan cultures, and flood and drought cycles repeatedly
pounded African, Asian and Australian communities. Hurricanes and
tornadoes have also battered states and countries throughout history, in
numbers and intensities that have been impossible to pattern or
predict.

But today we are supposed to believe climate variability is due to
humans – and computer models can now forecast climate changes with
amazing accuracy. These models and the alarmist scientists behind them
say greenhouse gases will increasingly trigger more “severe, pervasive
and irreversible impacts for people, species and ecosystems,” a recent
UN report insists.

In reality, carbon dioxide’s effect on devastating weather patterns is
greatly overstated. We are near a 30-year low in hurricane energy
(measured by the ACE index of “accumulated cyclone energy”), and
tropical cyclone and storm activity has not increased globally over that
period. In fact, as of November 18, it’s been 3,310 days since a
Category 3-5 hurricane hit the US mainland – by far the longest stretch
since records began in 1900. This Atlantic hurricane season was the
least active in 30 years.

Moreover, there has been no warming since 1995, several recent winters
have been among the coldest in centuries in the United Kingdom and
continental Europe, the 2013-14 winter was one of the coldest and
snowiest in memory for much of the United States and Canada – and the
cold spell could continue.

Accurate climate forecasts one, five or ten years in advance would
certainly enable us to plan and prepare for, adapt to and mitigate the
effects of significant or harmful climate variations, including
temperatures, hurricanes, floods and droughts. However, such forecasts
can never be even reasonably accurate under the climate change
hypothesis that the IPCC, EPA and other agencies have adopted. The
reason is simple.

They also largely ignore significant effects of urban and other land use
changes, and major high-impact fluctuations like the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation (El Niño and La Niña) and North Atlantic Oscillation. If we
truly want reliable predictive capabilities, we must eliminate the
obsession with carbon dioxide as the primary driver of climate change –
and devote far more attention to studying all the powerful forces that
have always driven climate change, the roles they play, and the complex
interactions among them.

We also need to study variations in the sun’s energy output, winds high
in the atmosphere, soil moisture, winter snow cover and volcanic
eruptions, Weatherbell forecaster Joe D’Aleo emphasizes. We also need to
examine unusual features like the pool of warm water that developed in
the central Pacific during the super La Niña of 2010-2011 and slowly
drifted with the wind-driven currents into the Gulf of Alaska, causing
the “polar vortex” that led to the cold, snowy winter of 2013-2014, he
stresses.

“The potential for climate modeling mischief and false scares from
incorrect climate model scenarios is tremendous,” says Colorado State
University analyst Bill Gray, who has been studying and forecasting
tropical cyclones for nearly 60 years. Among the reasons he cites for
grossly deficient models are their “unrealistic model input physics,”
the “overly simplified and inadequate numerical techniques,” and the
fact that decadal and century-scale circulation changes in the deep
oceans “are very difficult to measure and are not yet well enough
understood to be realistically included in the climate models.”

Nor does applying today’s super computers to climate forecasting help
matters. NOAA, the British Meteorological Office and other government
analysts have some of the world’s biggest and fastest computers – and
yet their (and thus the IPCC’s and EPA’s) predictions are consistently
and stupendously wrong. Speedier modern computers simply make the
“garbage in, garbage out” adage occur much more quickly, thereby
facilitating faster faulty forecasts. Why does this continue? Follow the
money.

Billions of dollars are doled out every year for numerous “scientific
studies” that supposedly link carbon dioxide and other alleged human
factors to dwindling frog populations, melting glaciers, migrating birds
and cockroaches, and scores of other remote to ridiculous assertions.
Focusing on “dangerous human-induced” climate change in research
proposals greatly improves the likelihood of receiving grants.

American taxpayers alone provide a tempting $2.5 billion annually for
research focused on human factors, through the EPA, Global Change
Research Program and other government agencies. Universities and other
institutions receiving grants take 40% or more off the top for “project
management” and “overhead.” None of them wants to upset this
arrangement, and all of them fear that accepting grants to study natural
factors or climate cycles might imperil funding from sources that have
their own reasons for making grants tied to manmade warming, renewable
energy or antipathy toward fossil fuels. Peer pressure and shared views
on wealth redistribution via energy policies, also play major roles.

When Nebraska lawmakers budgeted $44,000 for a review of climate cycles
and natural causes, state researchers said they would not be interested
unless human influences were included. The “natural causes” proposal was
ultimately scuttled in favor of yet another meaningless study of human
influences.

The result is steady streams of computer model outputs that alarmists
ensure us accurately predict climate changes. However, none of them
forecast the 18-years-and-counting warming pause, the absence of
hurricanes, or other real-world conditions. Nearly every one predicted
temperatures that trend higher with every passing year and exceed
recorded global temperatures by ever widening margins.

The constant predictions of looming manmade climate disasters are also
used to justify demands that developed nations “compensate” poor and
developing countries with tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in
annual climate “reparation, adaptation and mitigation” money. Meanwhile,
those no-longer-so-wealthy nations are implementing renewable energy
and anti-hydrocarbon policies that drive up energy costs for businesses
and families, kill millions of jobs, and result in thousands of deaths
annually among elderly pensioners and others who can no longer afford to
heat their homes properly during cold winters.

Worst of all, the climate disaster predictions are used to justify
telling impoverished countries that they may develop only to extent
enabled by wind and solar power. Financial institutions increasingly
refuse to provide grants or loans for electricity generation projects
fueled by coal or natural gas. Millions die every year because they do
not have electricity to operate water purification facilities,
refrigerators to keep food and medicine from spoiling, or stoves and
heaters to replace wood and dung fires that cause rampant lung diseases.
As Alex Epstein observes in his new book, The Moral Case for Fossil
Fuels:

“If you’re living off the grid and can afford it, an installation with a
battery that can power a few appliances might be better than the
alternative (no energy or frequently returning to civilization for
diesel fuel), but [such installations] are essentially useless in
providing cheap, plentiful energy for 7 billion people – and to rely on
them would be deadly.”

By expanding our research – to include careful, honest, accurate studies
of natural factors – we will be better able to discern and separate
significant human influences from the powerful natural forces that have
caused minor to profound climate fluctuations throughout history. Only
then will we begin to improve our ability to predict why, when, how and
where Earth’s climate is likely to change in the future. Congress should
reduce CO2 funding and earmark funds for researching natural forces
that drive climate change.

Via email

Australian Wind Industry in a Tailspin as Senate Sets Up Inquiry Into
the Great Wind Power Fraud & Cross-Benchers Lay Out Plans for the
LRET

(LRET = Large-scale Renewable Energy Target)

STT recently covered a motion proposed by cross-bench Senators
Leyonhjelm, Madigan, Day, Xenophon; with the support of the Coalition,
through their Deputy Government Whip in the Senate, STT Champion, WA
Senator, Chris Back to establish a wide-ranging inquiry into the wind
industry in Australia. It gives us much pleasure to report that the
Senate voted to establish the inquiry, as moved by David Leyonhjelm on
Monday.

Sure, it was a close-run thing, but many a grand final has been won by a single kick.

Predictably, the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers have gone
into a tailspin – wailing about the dreaded malady of “uncertainty” – of
the kind that everyone else gets to face on a daily basis in every
aspect of life and business – but from which the wind industry must be
protected at all times.

But the Senate inquiry is just the beginning of the wind industry’s many woes.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

25 November, 2014

World locked into 'alarming' global warming, says World Bank

On their own figures the warming is trivial -- certainly not
'alarming'. A temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius in the last
200 years is less than a one degree (i.e. .75 of a degree) rise per
century. Are these guys serious? At that rate no-one will
notice anything about the climate. One hopes that they understand
more about money than they do about climate

The world is locked into 1.5°C global warming, posing severe risks to
lives and livelihoods around the world, according to a new climate
report commissioned by the World Bank.

The report, which called on a large body of scientific evidence, found
that global warming of close to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times – up
from 0.8°C today – is already locked into Earth's atmospheric system by
past and predicted greenhouse gas emissions.

Such an increase could have potentially catastrophic consequences for
mankind, causing the global sea level to rise more than 30 centimeters
by 2100, droughts to become more severe and placing almost 90 percent of
coral reefs at risk of extinction.

The World Bank called on scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research and Climate Analytics and asked them to look at the
likely impacts of present day (0.8°C), 2°C and 4°C warming on
agricultural production, water resources, cities and ecosystems across
the world.

Their findings, collated in the Bank's third report on climate change
published on Monday, specifically looked at the risks climate change
poses to lives and livelihoods across Latin America and the Caribbean,
Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa.

In the report entitled "Turndown the heat – Confronting the new climate
normal," scientists warned that even a seemingly slight rise in global
warming could have dramatic effects on us all.

"A world even 1.5°C [warmer] will mean more severe droughts and global
sea level rise, increasing the risk of damage from storm surges and crop
loss and raising the cost of adaptation for millions of people," the
report with multiple authors said. "These changes are already underway,
with global temperatures 0.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times,
and the impact on food security, water supplies and livelihoods is just
beginning."

As temperatures rise, heat extremes on a par with the heat waves in the
U.S. in 2012 and Russia in 2010 will also become more common, scientists
believed. "Everyone will feel the impact, particularly the poor, as
weather extremes become more common and risks to food, water, and energy
security increase."

Without concerted action to reduce emissions, the report warns that the
planet is on pace for 2°C warming by mid-century and 4°C or more by the
time today's teenagers are in their 80s.

A temperature rise of this magnitude would create "a frightening world
of increased risks and global instability," the World Bank Group's
President Jim Yong Kim said, calling the scientists' findings
"alarming."

"Today's report confirms what scientists have been saying – past
emissions have set an unavoidable course of warming over the next two
decades, which will affect the world's poorest and most vulnerable
people the most," Kim said. "Climate change impacts such as extreme heat
events may now be unavoidable," he added.

The effects of climate change are already starting to impact on mankind,
the president noted, with record-breaking temperatures occurring more
frequently, rainfall increasing in intensity in some places, while
drought-prone regions like the Mediterranean are getting dryer. A
significant increase in tropical North Atlantic cyclone activity is
affecting the Caribbean and Central America.

The new report comes on the heels of strong new warnings from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about the pace of
climate change and the energy transformations necessary to stay within
2°C warming.

Earlier in November, China and the U.S. signed a landmark agreement to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 but there are fears those curbs
don't go far enough to slow the onslaught of global warming. There are
still many prominent and influential climate change skeptics to convince
too.

Global governments are gathering in Lima, Peru at the start of December
for the next round of climate negotiations. The World Bank said its
latest report provides "direction and evidence of the risks and the need
for ambitious goals to decarbonize economies now."

“Yes, Monsanto is pure evil,” I said. This was about a year ago, in
2013, and I was defending science and nuanced thinking in the same
sentence, no less. “Monsanto is pure evil,” I said, “but genetic
engineering is just a tool and in itself is neither good or bad.” My
University course literature had given a balanced view of many possible
benefits to GM while highlighting a couple of areas of caution. My main
insight on Monsanto came from the movie Food Inc., confirmed by plenty
of common internet knowledge and a couple of trusted friends of mine.

I had always considered myself a rational and science-minded person so I
was upset when I first heard people object to GMOs for reasons such as
not wanting genes in their food (in the late nineties, when the topic
was still very new and knowledge scarce) or just because ‘it wasn’t
natural’, which I saw as a fear of the unknown.

Later on I was incredibly frustrated to find that a lot of people
opposed standard vaccinations going counter to scientific evidence. So
when I stumbled on a Facebook page called “We love vaccines and GMOs”,
though I didn’t exactly think of my view on genetic engineering as
‘love’, I was happy to find a place to share my frustration. But as I
started following their posts I was confronted with something that gave
me pause. There were several that criticised organic farming.

I had been a loyal organic consumer for a decade. My vegan friends had
talked a lot about how detrimental industrial agriculture was for the
environment, and even my favourite ecology teacher back in the
University mentioned how important it was to buy organic milk and meat.
Living on student subsidies and saving on about everything else, I was
convinced that buying ecological produce (In Finland the label actually
goes under the name ‘Eco’, and the Swedish label, translated roughly to
‘Demand’, also states the food is ecologically produced. In Switzerland
it’s called ‘Bio’ for biologically farmed.) was vital for the
environment. Paying twice the price was more than worth it.

I couldn’t just leave the criticism unaddressed. Somebody needed to
present a nuanced voice of organic farming, so that people would not
group it together with anti-science sentiments. So I started digging. I
read about comprehensive meta-analyses of studies where they found that
organic food was no more nutritious than conventional produce1,2.
Interesting, but hardly devastating. That wasn’t my reason for choosing
organic. I read about how organic was an industry like any other,
looking for profit, with all the dirt that entails3,4 – well sure. It
couldn’t exactly be a charity, could it? Not every company was perfectly
principled. It didn’t mean that the whole organic label was bad. Then I
read a Swiss animal welfare organisation statement that organic did not
necessarily reflect in greater well-being for the animals, that it was
more narrowly focused on the farming of crops5. As a great animal lover I
thought, okay, that’s a pity, for animal products I would have to look
for different labels. But I would continue to support organic for the
most important point, for the sake of the environment.

I continued. There were studies about organic pesticides being no more
benign than conventional6. Well that was surprising, but made sense,
they would all have to be some kind of chemicals that kill plants and
insects. I further read about how the risks from pesticides for the
consumer were actually very small7,8,9, and that people feared them much
out of proportion! What a relief. Why did so many seem to think the
opposite?

Further, there was a study that said organic farming actually
contributed more to pollution of groundwater10, and then an analysis of
more than a hundred studies saying organic had more ammonia and nitrogen
run-off per product unit, leading to more eutrophication as well as
acidification potential11. Ouch. That was not what I would have thought.
But considering the imprecise mode of fertilisation (spreading out
manure), that too did make sense. Most importantly, also confirmed by
several sources, I found out that the big issue with organic farming was
the yield – forgoing the more efficient synthetic methods meant having
one third (or between a half and one fifth) less of end
product2,11,12,13. Which in turn meant that scaling up organic farming,
we would need to find a third more land to make up for its inefficiency.

When I looked at these studies one by one, my immediate reaction was:
surely now that these results were available, where necessary, organic
farming practices could be adapted so that they would continue to
provide consumers with the best environmentally friendly sources of
food. But that relied on an assumption I held that I had so far not even
thought of checking.

I thought organic farming was based on evidence, but it wasn’t. It
wasn’t designed by studying what would be best for the environment. On
the contrary, to my surprise I found it’s roots were actually in
biodynamic agriculture – a method that emphasizes spiritual and mystical
perspectives on farming14. What? How could I have missed such a point
for a decade? The picture I was beginning to piece together was that
being ‘organic’ was based on the idea that modern farming – industrial
agriculture – was bad, and the old ways of farming were better. That
whatever natural was, that was better.

So anything created specifically in a lab, with intention, aim, and
knowledge – anything synthetic – had to be bad15. Genetic engineering
(which I had thought would go hand-in-hand with many of the ecological
intentions of organic farming) had to be especially bad. And companies
working on modern agricultural approaches were simply the worst16.

While I was in the midst of what I call my organic crisis, I saw another
post that was at odds with my world view. But this one was over the
top. A YouTube video called “I love Monsanto”17. I clicked on the link
in disbelief as I had never seen those three words in the same sentence
before. Obviously it was an attention-seeking stunt, and it worked. The
man in the video, Dusty, went through one Monsanto-claim after another,
and punched them full of holes. And quite easily too. He urged his
watchers not to take his word but to read up on the claims themselves. I
did. Alleged lawsuits, abusing and controlling farmers, bad treatment
of employees, Indian farmer suicides, terminator seeds, terrible farming
practices, toxic pesticides, devastating health impacts and on and
on18,19,20,21,22.

I came up empty. There was nothing terrible left that I could accuse
Monsanto of. I even skimmed back and forth in the movie Food Inc., and
looked for supporting sources online, but instead of finding ammunition,
I found more holes23,24. With a few emotional testimonies and
dramatised footage the movie painted a worldview which made all its
following insinuations plausible. I couldn’t believe I had not seen the
gaps in its presentation on the first viewing. Why didn’t they interview
any science experts or organisations? What about the FDA? Union
representatives? Farming organisations? Lawyers? Immigration officials?
Where was the actual evidence?

I was embarrassed and angry over how easily I had been fooled. Not only
had I parroted silly slogans such as ‘Monsanto is evil’, but I had long
and determinedly supported a branch of agriculture that I thought was
making the world better. It dawned on me that the only improvements in
fact being made were the ones in the minds of myself and the other
organic supporters – thinking better of ourselves for making such
ethical choices. I had shunned others for using the ‘natural’ argument,
but with my wallet I had supported the idea that ‘natural’ methods were
best in a mysterious way that was above and beyond evidence.

I began to question if there even was a ‘natural way to farm’? If
natural was defined by, say, the exclusion of human activities, then
surely there was nothing natural to farming. On the other hand, if we
accepted humans as a part of nature, and our continued innovations as
part of *our nature*, then all farming was natural. Saying that more
traditional farming practices would be inherently better than those
using more advanced technology wasn’t a concept that could be settled by
a romantical appeal to nature. Only careful definitions of ‘better’,
followed by observations, testing, and evaluation of evidence could tell
us something about that.

Another thing which may or may not be considered natural, is how
incredibly many humans there are on this planet today. My reading has
made me accept that innovations like synthetic pesticides, fertilisers,
and enhanced crops are important in the quest of keeping everybody fed. I
have even begun to accept that Monsanto – gasp – could play a part in
making the world better. As I see it, the best kind of agriculture going
forward should be a scientifically oriented one. It should be free to
combine the best methods whether they be derived from old traditions or
created in the lab, using what makes most sense, in order to arrive at
efficient and environmentally friendly ways of farming. And what has
made me happy indeed, is realising that this is already being
done2,12,25,26,27.

Organic labels on the other hand are not adapting. Actually, it appears
they are spending considerable sums of money to mislead the public about
science3,28,29. That is not something I can approve of. And I am not
ready to give up one third more land to support the appealing idea of
‘being natural’. That is land which isn’t there. Land which comprises
the last dwindling habitats for wild-life – the actual nature.

I am still searching for that label that would say ‘buying this will
make the world a better place’. And if I do find one, I will do a proper
background-check to see if I can verify its claims. I’ve realised that I
am in no way immune to basing my views on unchecked assumptions, and I
shouldn’t judge others for making the same mistake. Having to change a
deep-seated world view can be exhausting and painful. I am thankful for
this experience and see it as a reminder to stay respectful of others,
no matter what beliefs they may hold. We can help each other in
remaining open for opportunities to learn.

So the Senate Democrats just defeated the $8 billion Keystone XL
pipeline by 1 vote. Sitting duck Mary Landrieu — the soon-to-be former
senator from Louisiana — begged her Democratic colleagues to vote for
the energy-and-job-creating project but, no, the Fauxcahontas Elizabeth
Warren “Green” wing of the party chose leftist sanctimoniousness over
practicality.

Here’s the thing about energy: we need as much of it as we can get as
cheaply as possible. Are you worried about “the environment,” “peak
oil,” etc.? Then you should be an aivd supporter of fracking, the
Keystone pipeline, and any other means of extracting fossil fuels from
the bounty of the Earth. Why? Because what the United States needs is
cheap, abundant energy, period (as the president might say). The reason
is that if you want to help the downtrodden, save the environment,
preserve the wetlands, and make the world safe for unbearable gasbags
like Elizabeth Warren, then you need money. And to get money you need
energy, lots and lots of energy. Let’s say you are interested in
developing viable alternatives to carbon-based fuels: how would you do
it? By basic research and an accumulation of engineering
experiments.

What is the indispensable prerequisite for undertaking those tasks
wholeheartedly? Money, wealth, prosperity. Without those golden keys,
there is no research to speak of and little in the way of
experimentation. The liberal (i.e., the wacko) wing of the Democratic
Party doesn’t seem to understand that.

Or maybe it does understand it but chooses to ignore it. After all, a
lack of resources does not hamper Elizabeth Warren’s movements. It
merely hurts the people she pretends to serve. Air Force records show
that Barack Obama charged the taxpayers $1,539,402.10 for his Labor Day
travels for “fundraising, personal business, and politicking.” As
Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton put it, “This Labor Day back-and-forth shows
President Obama seems to confuse Air Force One with Uber.”

Governments are running huge deficits, but still spend billions on
“climate research” especially trying to model the effect of the
atmosphere and its trace of carbon dioxide on surface temperature.
Benefits are hard to find. It may have improved weather forecasts by a
day or so, but official long-term predictions have not improved in the
last fifty years. This is because carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
not the main driver of weather or climate.

“What is referred to reverently as “climate research” is mainly just
grubby advocacy supporting the political war on carbon. Why are we still
funding scientists who believe that “the science is settled”? If they
believe that they know the answers, what are they are doing with their
research funds?”

Around the world there are five official weather data-bases, about 14
weather satellites (some say there are 88 of them!), 73 climate computer
models, at least 30 research groups and thousands of academics
receiving grants and attending never-ending climate conferences. Much of
this torrent of public money is now focussed on trying to torture a
climate confession out of one normally un-noticed and totally innocent
trace gas in the atmosphere – carbon dioxide.

The major determinants of surface weather are latitude, earth’s
rotation, the seasons, the sun with its variable radiations and orbital
changes; and nearness to the oceans which maintain the water cycle,
moderate temperatures and house massive volcanic chains.

Earth’s mighty oceans cover 70% of the surface. Evaporation of water and
convection in the atmosphere transfer large quantities of solar heat
from the surface to the stratosphere. This process creates clouds, rain
and snow and also forms low pressure zones which are the birthplace for
cyclones and hurricanes. Wind direction and strength are related to
sun-generated convection in the atmosphere, the transfer of solar heat
from the equator to the poles, and the Coriolis effect of the rotation
of the earth. Carbon dioxide plays no significant part in these
processes.

Oceans also conceal most of the volcanic ring-of-fire and are home to
huge numbers of volcanoes, many of which are active. The mighty
weather-changing ENSO/El Nino starts with a pool of warm water in the
eastern Pacific. Carbon dioxide plays no part in creating such
hot-spots, but periodic eruption of undersea volcanoes may do it. We
know less about the floor of the oceans and their volcanoes than we do
about the surface of Mars.

The community is getting little benefit from much atmospheric research
and most climate modelling, and that money should be redirected to more
productive areas.

Half of “climate research” money should be spent on improving the
ability of public infrastructure to survive natural disasters.

The remaining funds should be spent on real climate research - mapping
the floor of the oceans, with particular reference to locating active
volcanoes; and investigating how volcanism, solar variations and cycles
of the sun, moon, planets and solar system impact long-term weather
forecasts and future climate. This work should preferably be done by
contracting private operators; and the climate models in public hands
should be handed over to practising meteorologists to see if they are
useful for short-term weather forecasting.

On Wednesday, the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee
is to hold a one-day inquiry into a report published by Lord Stern's New
Climate Economy project (NCE) and will take evidence from Stern
himself, as well as Jeremy Oppenheim, an economist from McKinsey and Co
who is involved in the project.

According to its website, NCE is a joint initiative of the governments
of seven countries, including the UK - no doubt this is Mr Davey's work
then. A glance at the people involved suggests that it is one of those
charades in which a panel of green activists selected from universities
around the world pretends that they have taken an objective look
at the subject at hand before faithfully delivering up the required
message.

In this case, the required message will then be reviewed by the ECC
committee, a panel of (mostly) green activists selected from
constituencies around the UK. The ECC will then pronounce the importance
of the findings of the first panel before retiring to its trough. This
committee of Parliament is in effect operating as the public relations
arm of a green activist body.

It's this pretence of holding the executive to account that is behind
the failure of our democracy here in the UK. And its why much of the
Westminster elite so badly needs to be swept aside.

Australian astronomer, Michael Brown, says science is not about debate, people are too stupid to judge

Michael Brown, recipient of taxpayer funds for astronomy, tells us that
science is not about debate because people are not smart enough to judge
the winner. He doesn’t list any evidence to support his faith in
climate models (he’s just part of the herd following the consensus
pack). Nor does he have any serious scientific criticism of the NIPCC
climate report. But he uses plenty of names, baseless allusion, and
innuendo. In the article ”Adversaries, zombies and NIPCC climate
pseudoscience” in The Conversation he resorts to a group smear (with the
help of the taxpayer funded site) in the hope that people won’t listen
to those who disagree with him. Apparently he can’t win a fair and open
debate, so he’s doing what he can to stop one.

If science now has “Gods” who are above question, it’s not science, it’s
a religion. A scientist who says “I’m right because I’m a scientist” is
neither right nor much of a scientist. Brown is acting like a
self-appointed High-Priest of the Climate Doctrine.

The NIPCC report is more balanced, more comprehensive, and more accurate
than the politically-guided tome from the IPCC . It contains hundreds
of peer reviewed references put together by independent scientists. In
his reply to it, Michael Brown tells us all we need to know about the
intellectual state of Australian science, and the value of The
Conversation.

This is the face of the Church of Global Warming.

How low can Brown go? How about “zombies”, “aliens”, and
“pseudoscience”? As an unskeptical scientist (and we all know what that
means), it appears Brown hopes to win through name-calling and “seeding
doubt” about the motivations of people he disagrees with. Skeptical
scientists are “skeptics” (always in quotes to imply they’re fakes) who
are “bankrolled” (he’s blind to the evidence about the financial truth
too).

For evidence Brown cites a consensus study that mixes up 0.3% with 97%.
He likes the IPCC political-consensus approach. This is post-modern
science (or post-science, science) forget radiosondes, just poll
government appointees.

All the other evidence Brown lists is superficial and irrelevant. He
claims: “there is remarkably good agreement between models of climate
change and the temperature data.” Then offers as evidence the utterly
banal and correct predictions of the “last 50 years” while ignoring the
devastating failure in the predictions of the last 20 years that matter.

Modern science is broken — Astronomy in Australia is a small community
and illogical, unscientific people have already been promoted to
influential positions. I could ask where the decent astronomers are, and
why aren’t they protesting, but because Brown’s activism is so strong,
so unscientific, and unequivocal, I expect those who disagree with him
would choose to stay silent. They wouldn’t know whether their next
grant will be reviewed by him, but they know that if it is, and they
are a vocal skeptic, it won’t help them. After a rant like this, why
would anyone expect equal treatment?

This Heisenberg-like state of uncertainty (will or will he not be a
reviewer for my application/proposal/paper? and will or will he not be
biased if he thinks I am a zombie/denier/anti-science?) is enough to
bring people in line. Welcome to the stifling blanket of self
censorship.

Ode to the stupid: According to Brown, those who question the mantra of
the IPCC are not just speaking their mind, they are using a
pseudoscience “ploy” to fool the people (who are too dumb to
realize). These evil mercenary skeptics want you to think we need
to debate complex, costly plans that are dependent on our knowledge of
the weather. (Imagine that!) Luckily for us, Brown is here to correct
the dumb engineers, doctors, and lawyers who are unconvinced a solar
panel in Melbourne will help stop a flood in Bangladesh.

The call for adversarial debate is a variant of the debate ploy, a
common pseudoscience tactic. At first glance having two teams present
competing positions seems entirely reasonable, but this approach only
works if the intended audience can effectively assess the arguments
presented.

Who is the pseudoscientist using a ploy to fool the public? The
geologist who tells us that this warming is not unusual, or the man who
has no evidence, and a profoundly unscientific and patronizing belief
that only the anointed can speak their mind?

How’s this for reasoning: According to Brown, adversarial debate failed
once with Einstein’s theory of relativity (the audience were not able to
get the right answer in 1920 on one of the most difficult and ground
breaking scientific advances in centuries). Cue the High-Priest,
therefore and verily says he, adversarial debate is always a waste of
time and science can only advance if the populace lets politicians
annoint Gods in each subject (and everyone bows to them).

No dissent will be tolerated, or we will call you a “zombie”!

Brown manages a few paragraphs of sciencey looking talk, but the papers
he supposedly debunks are irrelevant to all the main NIPCC claims. The
papers he cites as supporting him don’t have any evidence that the IPCC
assumptions were correct.

Zombie Science: The Zombie in the room here is the dead science being
revived endlessly by Brown and the IPCC, despite the evidence that
climate models are based on flawed assumptions, which we know from 28
million weather balloons, 3000 ARGO buoys, 800,000 years of ice
cores, and 30 years of satellites.

Monash University may want to teach its scientists what science is and
how to reason. Do Monash approve of this anti-science behaviour? Is this
what they teach the students? Can someone ask the Dean?

If Monash don’t have good answers, the questions ought go to the
Minister for Education. Why are tax dollars supporting university
“science” which is so unscientific?

Send your questions to The Dean of Science at Monash, and or to The
Minister for Education, The Hon Christopher Pyne MP, which not only
funds Monash, but through Monash and other universities, The
Conversation.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

24 November, 2014

Keystone Vote Shows Ecofacists Own Democrats

Tom Steyer’s multi-million-dollar investment in Senate Democrats paid
off Tuesday evening with the defeat of a bill to approve the Keystone XL
pipeline.

“With today’s vote, the Senate chose to stand up for the American
people,” Steyer declared in a statement after the bill fell one short
vote of the 60 necessary to break a Democratic filibuster.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.) pushed hard for the measure as she faces a
tough runoff battle against her Republican challenger, Rep. Bill
Cassidy, who sponsored companion legislation in the House.

Landrieu has attracted Steyer’s ire for her Keystone support. His super
PAC, NextGen Climate Action, even threatened to attack her directly over
her pro-energy positions.

Thirteen of Landrieu’s Democratic colleagues joined her in supporting
Keystone on Tuesday. Just one more Democratic vote would’ve sent the
measure to the president’s desk.

Leading the anti-Keystone charge were a number of senators who have
vocally supported Steyer’s efforts since he ramped up his political
efforts last year.

The group also dropped more than $3 million attacking unsuccessful New
Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown. His opponent,
Shaheen, voted against approving the pipeline.

NextGen eventually spent more than $60 million on federal elections,
primarily a handful of Senate races. A majority of its chosen candidates
lost their races.

Despite a resounding defeat at the polls in the midterms, Democrats are
increasingly relying on campaign cash from hardline environmentalists.
Those groups say that a purist Democratic Party without energy policy
dissenters such as Landrieu is preferable to a Senate majority.

“We think the value gained in showing the Democratic Party that they
need to be better on climate issues outweighs the marginal differences,”
an operative with the radical environmentalist group 350.org told the
Washington Post’s Dana Milbank.

“This is about sort of instigating a cultural shift and a political
shift that sends a message to politicians that they all need to be
better on climate issues,” she added.

Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy told reporters
Monday morning that the so-called pause in global warming was not
representative of the broader trends in climate, which she says point to
global warming.

“That is a short-lived issue that doesn’t represent climate,” McCarthy
told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor,
adding that many other factors show the planet is changing because of
human influence– though she did not elaborate on this point because the
breakfast was nearing its end.

Satellite temperature data, which measures the lower parts of the
Earth’s atmosphere, shows there has been no significant warming trend
for the last 18 years or so. Surface temperatures from weather stations,
buoys and ships show a lack of warming for about the last 15 years or
so.

Scientists have struggled to explain the lack of warming in recent
years, giving dozens of explanations for the pause, ranging from
increased volcanic activity to natural ocean cycles. While scientists
debate the causes of the pause, some are lowering their estimates of how
much warming could occur in the future. Some scientists point to
measures like warming ocean temperatures, melting Arctic Sea ice,
extreme weather events or varying crop yields as evidence that carbon
dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are having an impact on the planet,
even though the temperature record may not currently reflect it.

Despite the lack of warming, the Obama administration has been pressing
forward with climate rules to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from
the fossil fuels industry. The most contentious regulation so far has
been the EPA’s rule to limit emissions from power plants, which will
likely cause coal plants to shut down.

“If you look at the science… nothing tells us we are being overly
aggressive” in what the agency is doing, McCarthy told reporters Monday
morning. Most recently, the Obama administration announced a vague
climate agreement with China for both countries to reduce emissions in
the coming years.

Critics have charged the deal binds the U.S. to deep emissions cuts that
could hurt the economy, while China has does not have make any
commitments to concrete emissions cuts. China simply promises to have
its emissions peak in 2030, though energy experts have said China’s
emissions are likely to peak around that time with or without an
agreement.

Along with this agreement, the U.S. has pledged $3 billion to an
international climate fund to pay for poor countries to adapt to a
warmer world.

The China agreement has been criticized by Republicans who have vowed to
fight the Obama administration’s global warming rules. Republicans
argue these rules will do nothing to stop warming and only serve to
raise energy prices and kill jobs.

“The president’s climate change agenda has only siphoned precious
taxpayer dollars away from the real problems facing the American
people,” said Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who will chair the
Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee in the new Congress.

“In a new Congress, I will be working with my colleagues to reset the
misguided priorities of Washington in the past six years,” Inhofe said.
“This includes getting our nation’s debt under control, securing proper
equipment and training to protect our men and women in uniform, and
repairing our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges. These are the
realistic priorities of today.”

Republican leaders have said they will make sure to pass legislation in
both chambers of Congress, ordering the EPA to roll back its agenda. If
that doesn’t work, Inhofe and other lawmakers have also considered
starving the EPA of its funding if it continues to promulgate climate
rules.

But McCarthy said stripping EPA’s funding will be an unpopular move: “I
feel very confident the American people understand the value of EPA,”
she said. “EPA has not been a partisan agency.”

President Obama has committed a mind-boggling $3 billion to a new United
Nations Green Climate Fund run by officials from Communist nations, a
country that appears on the State Department's list of
terrorism-sponsors and an Arab oil-industry chief.

As if it weren't bad enough that our commander-in-chief is giving away
money while the nation suffers through a colossal budget deficit, there
are countless reasons why this is a lousy idea. First of all, the United
Nations is a famously corrupt organization that is already largely
funded by Uncle Sam to the tune of billions annually. The exact figure
is tough to nail down because the U.S. cash flows, not just directly to
U.N. coffers from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), but also from a number of other
government agencies to the U.N. system.

The entire world body is well known as a pillar of fraud and
mismanagement, but that hasn't slowed the tide of American taxpayer
dollars. Even the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, funded primarily by
American taxpayers, is a huge joke. A few years ago Judicial Watch
reported that the U.N. awarded a genocidal warlord indicted by an
international court for crimes against humanity a seat on its laughable
human rights council. His name is Omar Al-Bashir, a ruthless African
dictator charged by the International Criminal Court of war crimes in
Darfur for killing thousands of his own citizens.

The last thing we need is another global U.N. initiative looking for
cash. The "urgency and seriousness of climate change" inspired the
crooked world body to create the Green Climate Fund, which aims to help
the international community combat global warming. Here's the plan in a
nutshell; the fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low-emission
and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to
developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions
and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. This will be accomplished
by following the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
an international environmental treaty that aims to stabilize greenhouse
gas concentrations.

Predictably, this can't be accomplished cheaply and President Obama
stepped up to the plate with the astounding $3 billion allotment. He
made the announcement this month during a speech in Australia. "Now,
today, I'm announcing that the United States will take another important
step," Obama said "We are going to contribute $3 billion to the Green
Climate Fund so we can help developing nations deal with climate change.
So along with the other nations that have pledged support, this gives
us the opportunity to help vulnerable communities with an early-warning
system, with stronger defenses against storm surges, climate-resilient
infrastructure." The speech, delivered at University of Queensland in
Brisbane, went on and on but the snippet is sufficient to relay its
gist.

Now let's take a look at who's running this new Green Climate Fund
that's supposed to save the world from the ills of global warming. Among
the board of directors is Yingming Yang, the Deputy Director General of
Communist China's Ministry of Finance and Jorge Ferrer Rodriguez, a
minister in Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Communist island has
for years appeared on the State Department's list of nations that
sponsor terrorism. Another interesting board member is Ayman Shasly, an
official in Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.

The selection of Shasly as a top dog of a conglomerate looking to halt
climate change is peculiar since the oil industry contributes the most
greenhouse gas and is well known to have a negative effect on the
environment because it's toxic to nearly all forms of life. Saudi
Arabia's Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources is a government
body in a country that happens to be the world's largest producer and
exporter of oil. In fact, it has a quarter of the world's known oil
reserves. Shasly's efforts as a global environmentalist may seem like a
conflict of interest, especially since his government has announced
plans to increase oil production from around 8 million barrels per day
to 12.

Even by German standards, Johannes Kapelle rates as a model green
citizen. The roof of his meticulously restored 19th-century farm house
is covered in solar panels. And when he walks into his large vegetable
garden he points to a wind farm which helps provide not only his village
but several others with all their energy needs.

Mr Kapelle has lived in the 500-year-old village of Proschim in east
Germany's Lausitz region for most of his life. He, his 350 neighbours
and the local farming community have devoted themselves to the green
cause. The village is surrounded by wind turbines and solar and biogas
plants which provide 15,000 homes with electricity.

The retired maths teacher, 78, remembers how under East German rule,
Proschim used to reek of sulphur. The former communist state depended on
so-called braunkohle the lignite coal fuel that is still being dug out
of the ground in vast open-cast mines just a few kilometres away.

"We don't want to go back to those days. That is why we are doing everything we can to save Proschim," Mr Kapelle says.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's plan to end Germany's dependence on nuclear
power by 2022 is set to bring about the destruction of Mr Kapelle's farm
house and the rest of Proschim's buildings. More than 800 residents
including some 400 from a neighbouring village will be resettled.

Proschim is just one of a cluster of east German villages and farms set
to make way for new lignite mines. The fossil fuel is intended to
"bridge" a widening energy gap resulting from the closure of Germany's
nuclear power plants.

"There are not yet enough renewable energy sources to compensate for the
loss of nuclear power," said Matti Nedoma, a spokesman for Proschim's
Prenac farm complex. "So to meet the shortfall we are being told we must
burn more coal and destroy farms and villages in the process," he said.

Mrs Merkel unveiled Germany's plan to axe nuclear power in 2011 in
response to public concern over the Fukushima disaster. Eight of the
country's 17 atomic power plants have since been shut down. Now,
although modern filters have reduced pollution, figures for 2013 show
that Germany burned more lignite than at any time since 1990.

In June the east German state of Brandenburg approved the state-owned
Swedish energy giant Vattenfall's plans to extend its five lignite
mines. The company plans to mine 200 million tons of coal from the
extended open-cast pits from 2027.

The residents of Proschim are up in arms. A large billboard with a map
of the area stands on a T-junction in the middle of the village. It
displays 16 black crosses denoting the villages that have disappeared
over the past decades to make way for new mines. Proschim is one of the
red crosses denoting the villages now threatened with demolition.

Mr Kapelle's neighbour, Martin Boslau, 65, says Germany's politicians
promised after reunification in 1990 that no further villages would be
demolished to make way for coal. "That's why we did up our house and
helped turn Proschim into a jewel. We are not going anywhere," he said.

Mr Boslau is one of more than 121,000 people who signed a petition
opposing Vattenfall's plans. The village is planning to fight the
Swedish energy giant with court injunctions at every step.

But the pro-coal lobby has 68,000 adherents. Local politicians and
Vattenfall argue the region has depended on lignite mining for more than
a century. The company says it provides 8,200 jobs in the region and
that 25,000 others are linked to coal. Opponents say the new mines will
create only 700 jobs.

Sigmar Gabriel, Chancellor Merkel's Energy minister, claims that more
lignite mines are vital: "We need strategic reserves of gas and coal
power for the times when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't
shine," he said.

Opponents argue that the region already has almost 40 billion tons of
lignite reserves. They also point out that Vattenfall exports much of
the energy from its German operation.

They hope that the outcome of Sweden's recent election may yet rescue
Proschim. The new Swedish government comprised of Social Democrats and
Greens could insist Vattenfall halt its expansion. Lise Nordin, the
Swedish Green party's energy spokeswoman, said last week that stopping
Vattenfall's east German project was her party's "most pressing"
decision.

The intense cold that many Americans are encountering arrives more than a
month before the official start of winter on December 2l.

To discuss this, we need to keep in mind that weather is what is
occurring now. Climate is measured over longer periods, the minimum of
which is thirty years and, beyond that, centuries.

We are colder these days because the Earth has been in a cooling cycle
for 19 years and that cycle is based entirely on the Sun which has been
radiating less heat for the same period of time.

Describing the role of the Sun, Australian geologist, Ian Plimer, said,
“There is a big thermonuclear reactor in the sky that emits huge amounts
of energy to the Earth…The Sun provides the energy for photosynthesis.
The Sun is the bringer of life to Earth. If the Sun were more energetic
the oceans would boil. If the Sun were less energetic the oceans would
freeze and all life on Earth would be destroyed.”

We don’t control the Sun. Or the climate. It controls us.

Consider the fact that the Sun has a diameter of 865,000 miles. The
Earth’s diameter is 7,917.5 miles. Thus, the Sun’s diameter is 109 times
greater than the Earth’s. Carbon dioxide is barely 0.04% of the Earth’s
atmosphere. Reducing it as the U.S.-China agreement proposes would have
zero effect on the Earth’s climate.

We not only can, but should ignore the blatant lies of President Obama
and Secretary of State John Kerry, both of whom have been saying things
about “climate change” without a scintilla of science to back them up.
They’re not alone, however. In August, the U.N. Climate Chief,
Christiana Figueres, warned of climate “chaos” in 500 days and told the
World Health Organization that climate change was on a par with the
outbreak of Ebola as a public health emergency.

It was big news on November 11 when The Wall Street Journal’s lead story
on its front page reported that “The U.S. and China unveiled long-term
plans to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to
climate change, a surprise move aimed at kick-starting a new round of
international climate negotiations and blunting domestic opposition to
cuts in both countries.”

Someone needs to tell the Wall Street Journal there is no “climate
change” that is not entirely NATURAL and unrelated to anything humans
are doing.

The announcement plays into the longtime efforts of the environmental
movement to impose energy limits on the world’s population. Similar
limits will be called for when climate talks are launched in December by
the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Lima,
Peru.

Why the leaders of nations keep calling for limits that can only result
in the reduction of energy production, the loss of economic benefits
from industrial activity and the jobs it provides, and the modern
lifestyle of advanced nations is one of life’s great mysteries.

If you really disliked America, you would no doubt pursue President
Obama’s anti-energy agenda. That agenda is expressed by a series of
climate and pollution measures that an article in Politico.com says
“rivals any presidential environmental actions of the past
quarter-century—a reality check for Republicans who think last week’s
election gave them a mandate to end what they call the White House’s
‘War on Coal.’”

The authors of the Politico.com article, Andrew Restuccia and Erica
Martinson, note that Obama’s assault on the nation is “Tied to
court-ordered deadlines, legal mandates and international climate talks”
over the next two months, all in the name of a climate change “And
incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have few options
for stopping the onslaught, though Republicans may be able to slow
pieces of it.”

“The coming rollout includes a Dec. 1 proposal by EPA to tighten limits
on smog-causing ozone, which business groups say could be the costliest
federal regulation of all time; a final rule Dec. 19 for clamping down
on disposal of power plants’ toxic coal cash; the Jan. 1 start date for a
long-debated rule prohibiting states from polluting the air of their
downwind neighbors; and a Jan. 8 deadline for issuing a final rule
restricting greenhouse gas emissions from future power plants. That last
rule is a centerpiece of Obama’s most ambitious environmental effort,
the big plan for combating climate change that he announced at
Georgetown University in June 2013.”

This vile assault flies in the face of actual climate trends: record low
tornadoes record low hurricanes, record gain in Arctic ice, record
amount of Antarctic ice, no change in the rate of sea level rise, no
evidence of a Greenland meltdown, and again no warming for 19 years.

As this and future winters turn colder, arrive sooner and stay around
longer, Americans will be affected by the reduction of coal-fired plants
that generate electrical power. The nation will encounter blizzards
that will leave some homeowners and apartment dwellers without heat. It
is predictable that some will die.

A cruel and costly climate hoax is being perpetrated by President Obama
and, in particular, by the Environmental Protection Agency. The new
Congress must take whatever action it can to reverse and stop the harm
that it represents; people’s jobs and lives depend on it.

OIL PRICES are plunging. Gasoline is now cheaper than milk. Why doesn't Washington do something already?

Since peaking in June, the price of oil has tumbled by 25 percent. Texas
light sweet crude futures have fallen to around $77.40 a barrel, a
three-year low, while Brent oil, the global benchmark, sank on Monday to
its lowest price in four years.

Oil prices, long steady at around $100 per barrel, have recently plunged to their lowest point in years.

With cheaper oil has come cheaper gasoline. The national average price
for a gallon of regular is now just $2.926. Drivers haven't seen pump
prices this low since December 2010. Nor have they seen such a sustained
decline — the price has dropped for 46 days in a row — since 2008.
According to AAA, "the national average could fall another 5-15 cents in
the coming weeks, which could make for the cheapest Thanksgiving gas in
half a decade."

Clearly the government needs to deal with this situation. What are Congress and the president waiting for?

You're looking at me as if I'm crazy.

Perhaps that's because you know that a drop of this magnitude in crude
oil prices translates, as Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign
Relations observes, "into more than $200 billion a year of savings for
US consumers through lower prices for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and
home heating oil." Perhaps you've seen the estimates that cheaper oil
could boost America's GDP by 0.4 percent. Perhaps you know that
shrinking fuel bills have been a godsend for transportation industries:
Airline stocks, to cite the most dramatic example, have been on fire,
and appear to be heading for their best back-to-back annual performance
in 20 years.

So only someone devoid of economic common sense would think of demanding
that regulators or lawmakers "do something" about the shift in oil and
gasoline prices, right?

And yet when the price of crude oil or gasoline is rising, politicians
and their enablers howl for blood. They vow to "crack down" on Big Oil,
to investigate price "manipulation" by energy speculators, or to strip
oil and gas companies of their tax credits. They freak out about the oil
industry's "windfall profits." They haul energy CEOs before Congress.
They accuse them of "price gouging."

This past June, when crude oil was trading at $108 a barrel (about $12
more than it had fetched in January), Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
and 17 Democratic cosponsors introduced legislation directing the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission to deploy its emergency powers to
"eliminate excessive speculation in energy markets." It wasn't the
interplay of supply and demand that was pushing prices higher, Sanders
claimed, it was greedy "big oil companies and Wall Street speculators."

Less than five months later, with fuel prices at lows not seen in years,
Sanders has lost interest in the subject, and now seeks other dragons
to slay. But as University of Michigan economist Mark J. Perry points
out, if the Sanders bill would make no sense now, it made no sense in
June either — regardless of what oil was selling for on the futures and
spot markets.

If wicked "speculators" were to blame for the $12 per barrel increase in
oil prices between January and June, Perry asked rhetorically on his
bracing economics blog, shouldn't the same speculators get credit for
the much bigger drop in oil prices between June and November? Or "are we
to assume that greedy speculators only enter the futures markets when
they 'smell profits' from rising oil prices, but then they suddenly
disappear whenever prices are falling?"

In most of the country, gasoline is now cheaper than milk.

It should go without saying that traders can make — or lose — money both
ways. (The Wall Street Journal reported recently on several hedge-fund
managers who shrewdly read the tea leaves and profited by betting on a
dive in oil futures.) It should also go without saying that the recent
free-fall in the price of oil and gasoline is hardly an unmitigated
blessing. It is causing no end of pain in great swaths of the economy —
from the giant oil companies whose profits are being squeezed, to the
small wildcatters who can't survive when crude drops too low, to auto
dealers struggling to move hybrids and other fuel-efficient small cars.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

23 November, 2014

It had to happen: A claim that current cold weather proves global warming

Science dabbler Chris Mooney says that there’s growing evidence that
global warming is driving crazy winters. You can put up a "post
hoc" explanation for almost anything but in the end a failed prediction
indicates a wrong theory

It may be the timeliest - and most troubling - idea in climate science.

Back in 2012, two researchers with a particular interest in the Arctic,
Rutgers' Jennifer Francis and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's
Stephen Vavrus, published a paper called "Evidence linking Arctic
amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes."

In it, they suggested that the fact that the Arctic is warming so
rapidly is leading to an unexpected but profound effect on the weather
where the vast majority of Americans live - a change that, if their
theory is correct, may have something to do with the extreme winter
weather the US has seen lately.

In their paper, Francis and Vavrus suggested that a rapidly warming
Arctic should interfere with the jet stream, the river of air high above
us that flows eastward around the northern hemisphere and brings with
it our weather. Sometimes, the jet stream flows relatively directly from
west to east; but other times, it takes long, wavy loops, as in the
image above. And according to Francis and Vavrus, Arctic warming should
make the jet stream more wavy and loopy on average – some have called it
"drunk" - with dramatic weather consequences.

Here's the atmospheric physics behind the idea: Warm air expands, and
naturally there is much more warm air at the equator than at the poles.
Thus, the atmosphere is thicker at the equator, and the jet stream's
motion is driven by the decline in atmospheric thickness as one moves in
a poleward direction - in effect, its atmospheric river flows
"downhill," in Francis's words. However, if the Arctic is warming faster
than the mid-latitudes, then the difference in thickness as you move in
a poleward direction should decrease. And this should slow the jet
stream, leading to more loops and turns - and consequently, weather of
all types getting stuck in place for longer. There's a nice video
explanation of this by Francis.

According to Francis, the extreme US winter of last year and now, the
extremes at the beginning of this season, fit her theory. "This winter
looks a whole lot like last winter, it's a very amplified jet stream
pattern," she says. "We know that when we get these patterns, it tends
to be very persistent. And it is definitely the type of pattern that we
expect to see more often as the Artic continues to warm so fast."

To be sure, Francis acknowledges that our recent bout of extreme cold
was kickstarted most directly by Typhoon Nuri, which swerved up into the
mid-latitudes and exploded into an atmospheric bomb over the Bering
Sea. "That had the downstream effect of basically taking the jet stream
and giving it a whip, whipping a wave into it," says Francis. But she
also suspects that the jet stream is more susceptible to these kinds of
dramatic influences because it is weaker now. In general, her theory
does not say global warming caused any particular weather event, only
that it is shifting the overall pattern of jet stream behaviour, making
certain kinds of persistent weather extremes more likely to occur.

Francis isn't the only one to suggest this. The widely read weather
blogger Jeff Masters mused yesterday on whether the extreme snowfall in
western New York this week might be due to "jet stream weirdness."
"We've seen an unusual number of extreme jet stream patterns like this
in the past fifteen years, which happens to coincide with the period of
time we've been observing record loss of summertime Arctic sea ice and
record retreat of springtime snow cover in the Arctic," noted Masters -
although he refrained from fully embracing the theory, noting that it
still has its detractors. Capital Weather Gang's Jason Samenow also just
discussed the evidence behind Francis's idea, which he calls
"controversial."

Francis argues, however, that the evidence in her favour is mounting -
she cites no fewer than five scientific papers published in the last
year or so that she considers supportive, and hints that more are
coming. "We've got 5 papers that all look at that particular mechanism
in different ways - different analysis, different data sets, observation
and models - and they all come to the same conclusion and they all
identify this mechanism independently," she says.

You can't call Francis's idea fully established. You can't say there's a
"scientific consensus" on it. And you can't say that the august UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change embraces it. Not yet. But it's
certainly a very serious idea and one of the most discussed theories in
climate science. Call it a contender. And if it's right, well ... then
we all know, already, what global warming feels like. [COLD!]

During 2014, the U.S. has experienced an unusual amount of record
breaking cold weather and weather related phenomena. In large part
due to the polar vortex, hundreds, if not thousands of cities and towns
in the United States experienced multiple days of record setting
temperatures — both record lows and record low high temperatures.

This continued into the summer. In July record lows or record low
high temperatures were set cities ranging from Atlanta to Baltimore,
from Dallas to Pittsburgh, and in states from Minnesota to Alabama and
Florida.

Record low temperatures continued into September when 246 record low
high temperatures records were broken or tied between September 1 and
September 10 alone. Some of the record breaking temperatures were as
much as 16 degrees below the previous record low.

In addition to record cold, numerous cities and regions saw record snowfall, and lingering snow in early 2014.

Not to be outdone, late 2014 is already breaking temperature and
snowfall records. South Carolina, experienced its earliest
snowfall on record , while other states are experiencing record amounts
of early snowfall and/or low temperatures. Some states and cities
are 20 degrees below their normal temperatures for this time of year
including Florida and Dallas, where I live. Denver has experienced
record breaking low temperatures two days running with temperatures
running 34 degrees below average and Maine has experienced its earliest
double-digit snowfall.

Not to be outdone, the great lakes region, the Mid-West and the great
Northwest, have all experienced either record lows, record low highs or
record early snowfall or ice. Most recently, Casper, Wyoming and
Oklahoma are both more then 20 degrees below their average temperatures
and while snowfall amounts accumulating in Idaho, Montana, Oregon,
Utah and Washington, are not extraordinary by mid-winter standards, for
early fall they are impressive.

I’m sorry folks, but this is not how global warming is supposed to work!

On Thursday afternoon (Nov. 13), the White House’s vaunted social media
squad invited Americans to go on Twitter, Facebook, Vine, or Instagram
and pose questions about climate change to the president’s science
advisor using the hashtag #AskDrH. Said the White House blog:

"Dr. John P. Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy, wants to answer any questions that you have about
climate change — what it means, how bad it actually is, and what we can
do to fight it."

Wait a minute! Holdren will answer “any questions that you have about
climate change” … but only if they conform to the notion that human
activity is causing a climate crisis, and restricting human activity by
government direction can “fight it.” I think the White House misspelled
“any.”

As it turned out, this was not going to be a “live” social media event
anyway. At some point in the future, we’re told, someone at the White
House is going to hand pick a few questions Holdren to answer “on
camera” for YouTube. As of Sunday evening, Holdren has provided no
answers. Maybe that’s because the White House social media experts are
having a hard time sifting through the wreckage of their ill-conceived
campaign and finding the very few that conform to Holdren’s alarmist
point of view.

The #AskDrH hashtag was hijacked by folks who had real, pointed, and
scientifically based questions for Holdren. They also had a bit of fun
at Holdren’s expense. I haven’t counted them all — that’s impossible,
because new questions keep coming in, even days later — but it’s safe to
say that … um … at least 97 percent of questioners don’t believe in
man-caused global warming, and want Holdren to explain some inconvenient
truths.

If he’s serious about his mission as “Science Advisor” to the President
of the United States, he should address some of the many very serious
questions on the science. The Heartland Institute has a long-standing
challenge to Dr. Holdren to debate a skeptic climate scientist, and we
threw that in to the #AskDrH stream many times.

No answer, so far.

Twitchy on Thursday, just hours after the call for questions went out,
reported on the #EpicFail of the White House’s latest effort to rally
public support around the climate crisis meme. If they were surprised
that the vast majority of questions would be actually challenges on the
science — as well as Holdren’s long public record of wildly goofy and
wrong predictions about the climate — the person in charge of social
media at the White House should consider another line of work. Perhaps
barista.

Carbamates and organophosphates will kill bed bugs where DDT will not
but onerous EPA regulations have forced them out of production

By Rich Kozlovich

On November 20, 2014 Samantha Craggs of CBC News posted an article
titled, DDT repeal would do nothing to combat bedbugs, stating that
experts say 'DDT is going to have zero effect. All it’s going to do is a
lot of damage'.

She goes on to state that; “Local bed bug and environmental experts say
DDT would do little to curb the infestation. DDT or no DDT,
there is no magic chemical that will rid Hamilton of its bed bug
problem.” And they’re right! DDT will not do one thing to
alleviate the bed bug problem in this city or any other city in Canada,
U.S or any other place in the world where DDT was used for this
purpose. But that’s not the real issue here! Which is what I
intend to will explore.

Apparently this article was inspired by the thoughts of a new
councillor-elect, Matthew Green, that appeared in an article titled, New
councillor wants to look at repealing DDT ban to fight bed bugs, that
“says he wants the province to take “a closer look” at repealing the
40-year ban on DDT, or other powerful chemicals on a limited basis if
they'll help eradicate bed bugs in Hamilton”. What triggered his
concerns? Well, I think we can reasonably assume there's nothing
like a good epidemic to get things started.

This Canadian city is in the midst of a “bed bug epidemic since 2006,
public health officials say, calls to the city have increased about 600
per cent. CityHousing Hamilton will spend $1 million this year alone
battling the problem.” If you read this article will notice
there’s an opportunity for their reading public to vote on whether or
not the ban on DDT should be lifted in some way asking “Should DDT ban
be repealed to fight Hamilton bed bugs?” In spite of the fact that
I absolutely know DDT will not end their bed bug problem I voted yes to
lift that ban along with 466 others. Of that number 238 (50.96%)
voted yes, 198 voted no (42.4%) and (31 6.64%) didn’t know.

The number that really strikes out at me is how many who didn’t know
whether or not the ban should be lifted. Remember - this is in
Canada - where anti-pesticide activists have dominated the process with
legislation and rank propaganda from the media, and yet over 6% “didn’t
know”. I think that’s an important statistic in viewing the
public’s concerns about pesticides and the impact they make in the lives
of western societies. Between those who want ban lifted and those
who don’t know that number comes to 57.6% of Canada’s population who
aren't moved by the anti-pesticide claims of the environmental movement
and their minions in the media and government, at least in a Canadian
city that’s been so badly plagued.

The article goes on to quote local pest control operator Roger Burley,
president of Aanteater Pest Control in Hamilton as saying “going back to
old pesticides won’t fix it, particularly DDT”. He further states
that “Bed bugs are resistant to DDT and most other pesticides that used
to treat it. “DDT is really dangerous, and it’s really not effective
against bed bugs anyway,” he said. “I’d love to have a silver bullet
that would wipe them right out, but it’s not DDT.”

The article continues to quote him saying “every chemical that used to
kill bed bugs wouldn’t work anymore”, and claims that bed bugs are
“immune” to a chemical classification known as organophosphates, which
would include Dursban, Diazinon and others. He continues being
quoted saying “Every 10 years, we have to find something new to kill
them”, and “they’ve mutated so much. The chemicals we use now are not
even related to those chemicals, and we’re actually having some
success.”

The only thing Burley said that was correct was that DDT won’t kill bed
bugs and we’re having some success - after that he became lost in the
green fever swamps. Resistance isn’t mutation and they are not
resistant to organophosphates, and there’s some argument as to whether
or not they’ve developed some resistance to carbamates, which are both
still used in countries other than the United States. Those who
have studied the efficacy of propoxur (commonly known as Baygon), a
carbamate, claim it’s still effective.

In point of fact those two chemical classifications were what replaced
DDT in the 1950’s when bed bugs became resistant to DDT.
Organophosphates and carbamates were so effective we didn’t have bed bug
problems again for almost 60 years. The reality is this -
carbamates and organophosphates were so effective against bed bugs we
were protecting society from this plague without even being aware of it.
An insect that plagued humanity all through human history until modern
pesticide chemistry was introduced in the 1940’s with DDT.

Let’s do a little history here. This plague DID NOT return until
the passage of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) and the loss of
carbamates and organophosphates. And they were NOT BANNED!

EPA created a whole new set of regulations based on risk “assumptions”
and added testing after 15 years of use. They managed to side step
science in order to create de-facto bans through use of economics and
unscientific demands, thereby avoiding all the messy legal problems they
would encounter if they actually attempted to ban these chemicals. FQPA
created such an economic hardship the primary registrants simply
refused to meet and made a business decision to pull their
registrations.

But environmentalists understand the real issue here, and it isn’t just
about bed bugs. It's all about lifting the ban on DDT that would
be far reaching. The article goes on to say, “a local
environmentalist and chemical scientist say thinking about bringing back
powerful and banned chemicals is a bad idea.”

There is the real issue in a nut shell. If DDT’s ban is lifted
then there will be serious efforts to do what this newly elected
official wants to do when he uttered the most frightening words no green
activist ever wants to hear: “I need to take a closer look at the
science, but there are chemical solutions and I’d like to revisit
that”.

The raw emotion created by Rachel Carson’s fallacious diatribe in her
successful "science fiction" book Silent Spring against chemical
pesticides is long past, and any honest scientific effort to revisit all
these laws and regulations used since 1972 to eliminate these life
saving products from the marketplace would devastate their movement.

Of course any article about DDT must include claims that it was banned
“because of its impact on wildlife, particularly bird populations”, and
that it’s “persistent and it bio-accumulates, and it does some
not-so-nice things". All are either fallacious or misleading.

Bird populations were never so high in North America until the extensive
use of DDT, and that includes the Bald Eagle, which increased during
the DDT years. Carson’s claim about how the poor robin was going
to disappear was not only wrong she was deliberately lying.
Carson was a science writer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
absolutely had to know that in 1960 there were “12 times more robins, 21
times more cowbirds, 38 times more blackbirds, 131 times more grackles,
etc. compared to 1941 numbers. The claims about bird shell
thinning was a lie based on studies that deliberately eliminated calcium
from the test bird’s diets. Carson had to know all of that and
deliberately lied.

The bio-accumulation argument was a bust. “The theory is
that if a fish eats a large number of crustaceans, the fish will have a
higher concentration of DDT than any one crustacean, and the duck that
eats many fish, and the hawk that eats many ducks, will have higher and
higher concentrations of DDT. To ``prove" this, propagandists analyzed
the DDT levels in hawk brains (where they are highest) and duck fat,
which has levels lower than hawk brain but higher than fish muscle. In
fact, if one compares the level in muscle from crustacean, fish, duck,
and hawk, there is no biomagnification at all. In fact, most of the DDT
in fish comes through the gills; most DDT in food passes through the gut
and is eliminated.”

As for the persistence argument: “Dr. Edwards can cite more than 140
articles demonstrating breakdown of DDT. In one experiment, a large
amount of DDT was added to sea water in a glass container, which was
closed and suspended in the ocean. After 38 days, 92% of the DDT and its
metabolites was gone. The persistence myth was based partly on
inaccurate measurements by gas-liquid chromatography. Many substances
interfere with the analysis, including PCBs in fluorescent light
ballasts or in the plastic tubing within the instrument. GLC, for
example, ``showed" five kinds of chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides in
soil samples, even though none existed until 30 years after the samples
were sealed.

Even if the bioaccumulation argument was valid we have to ask ourselves
where was the predicted devastation? Who were devastated? What
animals were devastated? Since we’re living longer and healthier
lives than any time inhuman history we must ask where's the predicted
devastation? We know that DDT did not then, and does not now,
cause cancer, nor do the other pesticides that took its place.

Scientists – if that’s what you choose to call them – have been going
along with this propaganda for decades because it’s profitable, and as
the years have gone by I have discovered these people are incapable of
ramping up the moral fiber to be the rock in the current.

What must really concern the greenies is the fact these other council
members aren’t taking a strong stand against the new guy’s desire to
review the science on pesticide bans saying: “the notion “needs to be
assessed by public health officials, who can separate politics from
science and conclude the best practices accordingly. Another
member is “open to forwarding a motion to the province” saying “The
province needs to understand the severity of this problem, and if we
keep hammering away with what we should be doing and what we can try,
they might have to take a look at that”. Even one who is opposed
says, “He's not a fan of the DDT option, but he admires Green's
commitment to the issue". He goes further stating “I welcome
councillor-elect Green to this very important discussion table.”
"His advocacy is welcomed."

This is after decades of indoctrination by the activists, the media,
academia and bureaucrats. As for claims about DDT being
linked to all sorts of afflictions. "Linked to" is a weasel word
for some professional’s opinion when in reality they don’t have a
clue….but they make all the right noises.

As for my voting on that poll to restore DDT in spite of knowing it will
have no direct positive impact on this city’s bed bug population – we
need to understand the ban on DDT is foundational to the green
movement. If that’s overturned their foundation of sand will start
to crumble and eventually everything they have promoted will be called
into question.

That’s a day that’s long overdue! The green movement's success has
been humanities nightmare. The socialist and green monsters of
the 20th century have left human devastation in their wake.

Good news: Leftist newspaper says the Australian government's climate change credentials have been battered

And see below that it includes some surprising claims, such as:
"The size of the Reef has halved in the past 30 years". I have
been following the barrier reef scares for around 60 years (long before
global warming was invented) but that was a newie on me.

But I have traced the claim, and one amusing thing that we read there
is: "The exhaustive AIMS investigation reveals coral loss is
uneven along the 2300km-long reef, with the far north still relatively
healthy." So the WARMEST parts of the reef are doing best! How pesky can
you get?

And what the research showed is NOT that the reef has
shrunk by 50% but that the CORAL has shrunk by 50%. The reef is of
course an ancient and relatively permanent structure of dead coral
skeletons.

We also read: "Storm damage accounted for
48 per cent of the coral loss in the past 27 years, crown-of-thorns
starfish were responsible for 42 per cent, and bleaching caused 10 per
cent of the coral to die". No mention of global warming! Though no
doubt they would claim that the storms were caused by global
warming. Since severe weather events worldwide have been
FEWER in recent years that however would be a rubbish claim, having no
regard to the actual statistics.

Warmists have also been known
to link starfish plagues with warming but again we read: "The study says
the causes of the plagues were still not fully known".

And I won't mention that the period covered by the research was 27 years, not 30.

And
I won't mention that the source paper for the research is no longer
where it was. Has it been taken down due to inaccuracy?

I
could go on but the lesson is clear: As soon as we get into the details
of the research findings, the sweeping claims made of the research by
Warmists are extensively falsified. So the appeals to authority
below are junk. It is the facts that matter, not authorities, and
the facts are very pesky indeed for Warmists.

My habit of going
back to the detailed research findings behind Green/Left claims once
again shows what crooks and crazies they are

Prime Minister Tony Abbott's apparent, if modest, conversion to the idea
that climate change was an "important subject" following talks
with French president Francois Hollande on Wednesday was greeted with no
small measure of cynicism.

This was, after all, a politician who had built a political career on
climate scepticism, with his famous remark in 2010 that it was "absolute
crap" to assert the science was settled.

It took only two days, but the doubters can claim vindication after
revelations that the government sent a briefing note to Barack Obama to
dissuade him that the Great Barrier Reef was under threat by climate
change.

In an interview with Fairfax Media's Latika Bourke in New York, Minister
for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop said the Reef was "not under threat
from climate change because its biggest threat is the nutrient runoffs
agricultural land, the second biggest threat is natural disasters, but
this has been for 200 years".

This is disingenuous, and factually wrong.

To be sure, the government believes the world is warming, and that human factors play a part.

But when it comes to acknowledging the urgency of the problem, how
climate change will impact on the world, and what must be done to avert a
catastrophic four-degree rise in global temperature, the Abbott
government offers obfuscation and excuses.

So it was with the response to Obama's speech in Brisbane last week,
when the US leader called on Australia's youth to rise up and demand
more action to combat climate change, remarking that "incredible natural
glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened".

The US leader's speech might have been undiplomatic and rude to his
hosts - but his analysis of the impact of climate change on the Reef was
spot on.

Just ask the federal government agencies charged with monitoring and protecting the Reef.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said in its 2014: "Climate
change remains the most serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef. It is
already affecting the reef and is likely to have far-reaching
consequences in the decades to come."

Averting further degradation of the Reef can "only be successful if
climatic conditions are stabilised" reported the Australian Institute of
Marine Science (AIMS), another government body.

The size of the Reef has halved in the past 30 years. Outbreaks of crown
of thorn starfish which consume soft corals - along with cyclones
- have contributed to about 90 per cent of that decline, says
AIMS.

Coral bleaching is responsible for the remaining 10 per cent.

Coral bleaching is the direct result of rising sea temperatures caused
by global warming. The acceleration of crown of thorn starfish
infestations - which spawn in warmer months - is also driven, at least
in part, by hotter weather.

And, warns the government's marine scientists, cyclone activity will only increase as the planet heats up.

Bishop's personal political stocks have soared in recent months due to
some forceful international diplomacy on the MH17 disaster and the rise
of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Her intervention on the Reef is unlikely to faze Obama, or harm
relations. But some of the gloss has come of Bishop's credentials as a
moderate alternative to Abbott.

And, the government's climate change credentials, once again, have been battered.

However, the Greenies who swooned over Obama for his environmental
crusade are the same snarling, left-of-centre bigots backing sinister
groups like Lock the Gate in attempting to sabotage the fledgling gas
industry here.

In a week dominated by news about the $7 billion Adani coal deal the importance of gas to our state cannot be overstated.

Gas royalties will deliver rivers of gold to the Queensland treasury as
it fights to restore the AAA credit rating trashed by the previous
government.

A significant milestone looms. And it may change everything. In three
weeks the first ever shipment of liquid natural gas sourced entirely
from coal seam gas will be shipped to Asia by QGC. It's not just a
Queensland first, it's a world first.

And, surprise, surprise, the gas drawn from beneath our cattle pastures
may end up in China. It will be traded on the open market in Asia
so the destination remains unclear.

Following Obama's visit the irony that the Queensland gas is destined
for China has not been lost on certain Queensland Cabinet ministers.

While the President discourteously attacked his host's environmental
credentials, our gas will eventually assist cutting emissions globally.

Australia's gas exports are set to increase from about 20 billion cubic
metres in 2012 to 114 billion cubic metres by 2040 as global demand is
forecast to grow more than any other fuel source. So says the
International Energy Agency.

And while many newspaper columnists were gushing about Obama's speech
and his green advice to Tony Abbott, they neglected to report America's
own disgusting record on carbon dioxide.

Why reporters ignored this part of the story is a bit of a mystery to
me. Suffice to say that the media craves celebrity and is often
blinded by it. And Obama was certainly a celebrity whose light shone
brightly that day.

At the risk of offending the Obama-love media, it has to be said our environmental record is cleaner than his.

So how dare Obama lecture us?

The US didn't sign the 1997 Kyoto agreement. Nevertheless it pledged to
cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7 per cent. Instead they soared.

Now we learn that over two decades from 1990 to 2010, US emissions grew by 53 times the actual growth of emissions in Australia.

I'm glad Environment Minister Greg Hunt pointed this out. He also
revealed China's sorry record. In the same two decades China's
emissions soared from 3.4 billion tonnes to 9.8 billion tonnes. This is
the fastest growth in emissions in human history, Hunt said.

"The increase in Chinese emissions was 640 times, or 64,000 per cent,
greater than any change in Australia. Over the same period, Chinese coal
consumption increased at the greatest rate in human history."

Of course Australia's footprint is insignificant compared to the
superpowers and we shouldn't beat ourselves up about it. In 1990,
according to Hunt's office, Australia produced 580 million tonnes of
carbon, the US 5.38 billion tonnes and China 3.356 billion tonnes.

By 2010, Australia's emissions had barely increased, to 590 million
tonnes. The US, on the other hand, registered a substantial increase to
5.923 billion tonnes and China to a staggering 9.769 billion tonnes.

By 2020, if Australia meets its target, it will produce 555 million
tonnes while the US will produce 5.144 billion tonnes and China a truly
astonishing 12.4 billion tonnes.

China will continue to build a coal-fired power station every 10 days until 2030.

I'm told another 28 nuclear power stations are also in the pipeline.
Good. Now we are getting somewhere. The US emissions, too, are
staggering and will continue to rise for years.

The other inconvenient truth is that Obama doesn't have congressional
backing so is unable to add legal force to the targets proposed with
China.

Former Labor state treasurer Keith DeLacy was not blinded by Obama's
halo. In an opinion piece in The Australian he said Obama was a "lame
duck" president.

DeLacy said Chinese President Xi Jinping admits CO2 emissions will
increase until 2030, pact or no pact. And renewables such as wind
and power would produce just 3 per cent of output, said Xi.

Said DeLacy: "China is currently increasing emissions every year by the
equivalent of Australia's total emissions, and Xi's statement means this
will continue to be the case."

He added: "Lame duck US President Obama signalled the US would not take
any leadership role on climate change action. "While he suggested
the US would reduce total emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by
2025, everyone knew he could not deliver any legislative backing for
measures to do this.

"However, he was confident the shale gas revolution and a spluttering US economy may be sufficient to reach this goal.

"When questioned on the depth of commitment the US had to this target, officials referred to past commitments."

MOST Queenslanders believe Tony Abbott was right to ignore international
pressure and focus the G20 summit on the economy rather than on Climate
change.

Just one-quarter of those surveyed in a new opinion poll said they
thought the top priority for G20 nations should be reducing carbon
emissions -compared to half who said the focus should on be economic
growth and jobs creation.

Both Labor and LNP suppporters rated economic growth higher than action on carbon.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has meanwhile sent a briefing to the White
House to allay ' US President Barack Obama's concerns about Australia
not working to protect the future of the Great.Barrier Reef.

From p. 31 of the Brisbane "Courier Mail" 22 Nov., 2014

Obama ignored embassy's warnings on climate change speech

BARACK Obama defied the -advice of his embassy in Canberra to
deliver a stinging attack on the Abbott government's climate policies in
Brisbane last weekend.

The US embassy, under the leadership of ambassador John Berry, advised
the President, through his senior staff, not to couch his climate change
comments in a way that would be seen as disobliging to the Abbott
government, sources have revealed.

When The Weekend Australian put this information to the US embassy, a
spokesman said: "As is the case with all presidential speeches,
President Obama's remarks at the University of Queensland in Brisbane
were prepared by the White House."

It is normal practice when the US President makes an overseas visit that
the ambassador in the country he is visiting is consulted about the
contents of major speeches. It is unusual, though not unprecedented, for
an embassy's advice to be ignored.

The Obama speech in Brisbane was added to the President's program at the
last minute. During his extensive talks with Tony Abbott in Beijing at
APEC, Mr Obama did not make any mention of a desire to make a speech, or
of any of the contentious climate change content of the speech.

Only in Naypyidaw, in Myanmar, immediately prior to the leaders
travelling to Brisbane for the G20 summit, did the US party demand that
the President make a speech and that it be to an audience of young
people. At the speech, the President did not -acknowledge the presence
of Governor-General Peter Cosgrove.

Despite repeated Australian requests, White House officials refused to
provide a text of the speech to their Australian hosts in advance, and
did not provide a summary of what would be contained in the speech.

Mr Obama's repeated references to the climate change debate in
Australia, his accusation that Australia was an inefficient user of
energy and his repeated references to the Great Barrier Reef, which has
figured heavily in the climate change debate, have led observers to
conclude that the speech was a deliberate swipe at the Abbott
government.

Historians of the US-Australia relationship are unable to nominate a
case of a visiting president making such a hostile speech for the host
government.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has accused Mr Obama of speaking in
ignorance about the joint plans by the federal and Queensland
governments to act to preserve the Great Barrier Reef. She sent a
briefing on the reef to the White House after Mr Obama's speech was
delivered.

Some days before the speech, at the World Parks Conference, Ms Bishop
met US Secretary of the -Interior Sally Jewell and gave her the same
briefing.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek yesterday accused
Ms Bishop of "berating" the President and said Ms Bishop had created an
"absurd" situation.

Sources in Washington said the Brisbane speech was a sign of deep
divisions within the Obama administration over how to deal with
Australia, and over Asian policy generally.

Senior US sources said Mr Obama had inadvertently overshadowed all the
elements of his speech, which dealt with regional security and America's
position in Asia. When the White House first proposed the speech, its
subject was to be US leadership in Asia.

Mr Obama's speech was in marked contrast to the accomplished speeches,
with their careful regional agendas, of China's President, Xi Jinping,
and India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to the Australian parliament.
Senior Washington sources told The Weekend Australian of a malaise in
Obama administration policy towards Asia and the lack of influence of
Asia experts lower down in the US government.

Since the Abbott government was elected last September, there has been a
group within the Obama administration that wants to take a tougher
public line against Canberra on differences over climate change, in
particular the decision to abolish the carbon tax.

Washington sources say the figure who ultimately adjudicated on this
internal debate was Mr Obama, who recognised that Mr Abbott had been
elected with a clear mandate to abolish the tax.

This has resulted, in part, in differing accounts of the first meeting
between Mr Abbott as Prime Minister and Mr Obama in Washington in
June. After the meeting, Australian officials briefed to the
effect that climate change was raised with Mr Abbott only briefly by Mr
Obama and in a non-contentious way. This version was confirmed by
senior US officials who offered the same account of the meeting.

US officials added that the Obama administration was acutely aware that
the US had no national carbon tax itself and that the administration had
been unable to get congress to agree to an emissions trading scheme,
which the Americans call a cap-and-trade scheme.

They said the US was keen merely to confirm that the Abbott government
was carrying out the commitments it had made on climate change, in
particular to reach the target of 5 per cent reductions on 2000 levels
of emissions by 2020.

At the same time, another account of the meeting was circulating through
Washington to the effect that Mr Obama had been much more insistent on
the issue with Mr Abbott. In this account, Mr Obama had repeatedly
referred to the Sydney Opera House sinking as a result of global
warming.

At the time Washington sources said this was an erroneous account of the
meeting, which reflected the great hostility over the carbon tax issue
that some of Mr Obama's domestic advisers felt.

Several former senior US officials characterise the White House as
introverted and not inclined to pay too much attention to officials,
either in the State Department or the Pentagon, who deal with Asia full
time. Others suggest senior figures in the White House, when they think
of Asia, tend to focus only on China.

Mr Obama has previously had a warm personal relationship with Mr Abbott.
The President has been a frequent telephone caller to Mr Abbott, almost
always with a request for Australian support for a US policy or
initiative, from troops for the Middle East, US trade initiatives in
Asia, or important regional diplomatic matters, especially those
involving security. On every occasion the US President has asked for
help, the Australian Prime Minister has provided it.

NSW conservative government cracks down on protesters, fast-tracks mining

The "close" relationship between the state government and the mining
industry has come under renewed scrutiny after Premier Mike Baird
announced faster mining approvals and harsher fines for protesters who
illegally enter mining sites.

The announcement, at a dinner for mining heavyweights on Thursday night,
came just hours after it was revealed that corrupt former Labor
minister Ian Macdonald will face criminal charges over a mining deal.

Critics have accused the government of cutting "special deals" with the
mining industry, and failing to follow advice by the corruption watchdog
to safeguard the planning system.

Lock the Gate Alliance said protesters already face heavy penalties,
citing farmer Ted Borowski, who was fined about $3000 for protesting
against Santos' coal seam gas operation earlier this year. By
comparison, the company was fined $1500 for contaminating an aquifer
with uranium.

The government says protesters do not have the right to act unlawfully,
and industry and the community should not wait years for mining
applications to be decided.

Mr Baird told a NSW Minerals Council event that his government will
halve assessment times for so-called "state significant" proposals, such
as mines and manufacturing plants. He said assessment times for mining
projects had jumped from 500 to more than 1000 days in the past six
years.

On Friday, Planning Minister Pru Goward said the government intends to
slash 170 days from the average time it takes to assess major
applications by introducing new timeframes and ensuring timely advice
from government agencies.

New timeframes would also be applied to the Planning Assessment
Commission, the independent body that decides some of the state's most
controversial proposals.

The government has been under pressure to streamline the mining
approvals process after its maligned planning reforms stalled in the
upper house.

Fairfax Media has reported that 13 mining industry leaders met Mr Baird
two weeks ago for a "crisis meeting" after Anglo American's application
to extend the Drayton South coal mine project was rejected.

The industry has also called for stronger penalties for trespassers,
following heated protests over projects such as Whitehaven Coal's Maules
Creek mine and Santos' coal seam gas venture in north-west NSW.

Mr Baird said it was "galling" that the mining industry was responsible
for the safety of trespassers. The government will seek changes to
workplace health and safety laws, and increase penalties for protesters
who break into mining operations, damage equipment or disrupt work.

Lock the Gate Alliance spokesman Phil Laird, whose organisation
campaigns against coal and gas mining, said the announcement highlights
the "close relationship and special treatment given to industry over the
interests of communities".

He said the government had ignored advice by the Independent Commission
Against Corruption to expand community appeal rights on planning
decisions. A spokesman for Ms Goward said independent scrutiny of
decisions already exists.

The NSW Minerals Council said the planning changes would "help attract investment and create jobs in our state".

Labor's environment spokesman Luke Foley welcomed the move towards
faster approvals, but said it should not come at the expense of proper
environmental, social and economic assessment.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham claimed the Liberal and National parties
were "essentially just the political arm of the mining industry".

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

21 November, 2014

Some comments on the latest Warmist shriek from Norm Kalmanovich

A summary of the latest IPCC emission is here.
It claims that the climate change "fight" is affordable and that we
must cut emissions to zero by 2100. That would mean putting all
gasoline and diesel-fueled vehicles off the road and closing around 95%
of America's electricity generators so is basically off with the
fairies. Facts don't matter to the insane, of course, but Norm
Kalmanovich points us to the the basic facts anyway:

This latest HadCRUT4 global temperature data shows that the increase in
CO2 emissions since 1850 has not resulted in detectable increase in
global temperature above the natural warming of 0.5°C /century as the
world recovered from the Little Ice Age.

A total of 0.79°C in 164 years is just 0.48°C/century and below the accepted natural warming rate of 0.5°C/century.

In 1850 CO2 emissions were under 0.5 gigatonne and today emissions are
in excess of 35 gigatonnes, so even if this 0.79°C of net global warming
since 1850 was entirely due to human sourced CO2 emissions; at this
rate we would only be at 1.58°C in year 2178 (2014 + 164)!

Before any further global warming can take place the world first has to
stop cooling. TSI data from the World Radiation Centre in Davos
Switzerland shows that there has been a decrease in total solar
irradiance (solar output) of 0.8W/m2 since 2002 and with all five global
temperature datasets showing global cooling since 2002; someone would
have to be rather ignorant to claim that we need to reduce emissions to
stop global warming when reduced output from the sun is currently
causing the Earth to cool (albeit very slightly). Since 2002 there has
been a 34% increase in CO2 emissions but with the world cooling as these
emissions continue to increase there is no amount of peer reviewed
articles, not even the 30,000 which claim support for AGW, that can
alter the fact that CO2 emissions are not causing global warming and
won’t be able to any time in the future; so why would anyone in their
right mind

Cripple the US economy by cutting back its fossil fuel energy supply!

Since we are only 0.79°C above the temperature prior to
industrialization and with the world currently cooling; Obama needs to
be challenged to first of all state when current global cooling will end
and once (and if) it ends how is reducing emissions to zero going to be
of any benefit in preventing the global temperature from warming a
further 1.21°C when increased emissions over the past 164 years could
only (and falsely) be attributed to just 0.79°C of warming!!

Via email

Historic snowfall buries a city that is no stranger to the cold

That global warming sure is pesky stuff!

For the hardy residents of Buffalo in northern New York state, digging
out from deep snows dumped by biting winds sweeping across from Lake
Erie is nothing new.

But even this industrial city near Niagara Falls was reeling after the
largest one-day snowfall ever recorded in the United States more than a
month before the official start of winter.

Some six feet of snow buried whole neighbourhoods in less than 24 hours,
while drifts churned up by biting winds reached 20 feet high, crushing
through doors and roofs and trapping motorists.

Dramatic walls of snow-clouds pummelled the city and “thunder snow” lit up the skies.

Across the US, temperatures plunged below zero in all 50 states,
including Hawaii. The unseasonally early cold snap evoked bone-chilling
memories of the “polar vortex” deep freeze that engulfed much of the
country at the start of this year.

Buffalo bore the brunt as the monster snow-storm claimed at least five
lives. A 46-year-old man was discovered dead in a car buried in snow,
three victims suffered heart attacks while trying to shovel through the
drifts and another was killed in a road crash.

Highway troopers rescued motorists and passengers from hundreds of
stranded vehicles, including a women’s college basketball team who
chronicled their 26 hours trapped inside a coach via social media after
running out of food and water.

And a nurse delivered a baby in a fire station after her pregnant mother
failed to make it to hospital, although the parents said they would
spurn calls to name their child “Stormy”.

The southern side of Buffalo bore the brunt of the historic snowfall
while districts just a few miles away experienced only a coating as the
sun shone.

The cold blast across North America is the result of an extreme jet stream pattern funelling Arctic air directly into the US.

But Buffalo took a particular pounding as those cold winds moved across
the warmer expanses of Lake Erie, picking up water vapour which froze
and turned into walls of snow-clouds.

This phenomenon of “lake-effect snow” created blizzards and white-outs
conditions on the southern side of the city while neighbourhoods just a
few miles away experienced only inches of show and blue sunny skies.

The city authorities deployed bulldozers owned by private businesses to
scoop up snow as many their regular snow-ploughs were trapped inside
compounds by the drifts.

Elsewhere, paramedics ditched their ambulances in favor of snowmobiles to reach emergencies.

Another heavy of night of snow was forecast on Wednesday evening.

The good and bad news is that temperatures in Buffalo are predicted to
rise to 13C within a few days, delivering a thaw that could produce
flooding and water damage.

The pre-Thanksgiving cold snap and a monster storm forecast to dump five
feet of snow on Buffalo, N.Y. Tuesday are just “a preview” of the
coming winter, which will be much colder and snowier than normal,
predicts Joseph D’Aleo, co-founder and first director of meteorology at
the Weather Channel.

D’Aleo, now chief forecaster at WeatherBell Analytics, was one of the
few meteorologists to accurately predict a colder-than-normal November.

He expects several major East Coast snowstorms and “widespread
below-zero temperatures” that will plunge much of the nation into a deep
freeze for as long as six weeks this winter.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows in Atlanta, Dallas, and Birmingham,” he told CNSNews.com.

“We’ve been talking about this being another one of those historic
winters since the spring. The summer before last, we had seen last
winter as being one that people near the Great Lakes would remember for a
long time, and it turned out to be the coldest December to March on
record in Chicago, and the snowiest in Detroit, and top five coldest in
many places in the central [part of the U.S.]

“And we saw the same kind of extreme this winter, not exactly in the
same place, but another winter that’s going to stress our electric grid
and also the energy sources that we have, “D’Aleo told CNSNews.com.

“We were not surprised at the cold coming. We had a cold forecast in
November even though all the tools that are used by forecasters to look
ahead, even two weeks, right up to the end of October, [were] not seeing
the cold. And then suddenly they caught on.

“But we use another approach where we look at all the factors globally:
the oceans and the sun and winds in the upper atmosphere over the
tropics, and we find years in the past when conditions were most
similar. We call it an analog approach. Other people do analogs, too.
And it was telling us that it would be a lot like last year in terms of
cold. It told us November would be cold, so we were swimming against the
strong current.”

D’Aleo noted that the unseasonably cold weather, which is being blamed
for 17 deaths since Saturday, is just “a preview” of the coming months
and years ahead, when he predicts that temperatures will be up to 20
degrees lower than normal.

“And then we think this winter will be another strong one. It may end
early in some parts of the country, like the Northeast, but it will be
very hard, especially in mid-winter. We’ll get a break after this
[current] assault, it may ease a little bit, but we think there’ll be an
extended period in mid-winter that will really be harsh all over the
nation.”

The worst of the frigid winter weather will likely hit right around
Christmas and last until the first week of February, he told
CNSNews.com.

“Everything we look at suggest that January will be the hardest of the
winter months. This is sort of a preview of that. Not to say there won’t
be snow and cold in December. In February, it’ll be cold, but more from
the snow on the ground than a continual feed of Arctic air.

“The snow will just make the cold worse,” he added. “It keeps
temperatures in daytime down and makes it colder at night in between
storms, so it’s going to be a very rough one for a lot of folks.”

“We might get a break next year,” the forecaster added on a hopeful
note. “Often these cold winters come in two-year periods and then you
get a break for a year as the oceans readjust. I wouldn’t be surprised
if there was a milder winter next year.”

CNSNews.com asked D’Aleo, who lives in New Hampshire and says he ran out
of heating oil last winter due to the sub-normal temperatures, his
reaction to last week’s agreement between President Obama and
Chinese President Xi Jinping to fight global warming by drastically
reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

“From the government’s own data, there has been no warming in winter for
25 years,” D’Aleo replied. “In fact, there’s been cooling for 20 years.
All nine climate regions have cooled in winter for 20 years.”

”This decade is just four years old, and we’ve already had 12 major
impact East Coast snowstorms out of close to 50 since the 1950s, which
they call NESIS (Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale) storms,” he continued.
“This is the most active [snowiest] decade on record. The last decade,
the 2000s, had 10. The 1960s had 10. This decade has 12 and we’re only
four years into it…. We could really be creating an historic decade when
all is said and done.”

“The major drivers [of the cold weather] are the oceans and the sun. The
Pacific has turned cold and the Atlantic is scheduled to go into its
cold mode within five years. And the sun is heading into a 200-year
minimum. The last time it was this quiet, and it will likely be this
quiet for two decades or so, was the early 1800s. That was called the
Dalton Minimum,” D’Aleo pointed out, which was a period of low
temperatures that corresponded with low solar activity between 1780 and
1840.

“That was the time of [Charles] Dickens. If you remember Dickens’
novels, the children always played in the snow in London. That’s what
they’re doing again… And there’ll be more winters like the Dickens years
in the years to come [because] we’re headed into a colder period that
will likely last decades…

“That doesn’t mean we won’t have a hot summer or that next winter won’t
be warmer, but on average we will experience more and more extreme cold
winters and cool summers. It’s part of a trend, and like I said, it’s
been cooling for 20 years, erratically but down.”

Trillions of dollars in ozone compliance and economic stagnation costs, for fabricated benefits

Paul Driessen

Looming Environmental Protection Agency ozone regulations personify the
Obama administration’s secrecy, collusion, fraud, and disdain for
concerns about the effects that its tsunami of regulations is having on
the livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare of millions of
American families.

Virtually every EPA announcement of new regulations asserts that they
will improve human health. Draconian carbon dioxide standards, for
example, won’t just prevent climate change, even if rapidly developing
countries continue emitting vast volumes of this plant-fertilizing gas.
The rules will somehow reduce the spread of ticks and Lyme disease, and
protect “our most vulnerable citizens.” It’s hogwash.

But Americans naturally worry about pollution harming children and the
poor. That makes it easy for EPA to promulgate regulations based on
false assumptions and linkages, black-box computer models, secretive
collusion with activist groups, outright deception, and supposedly
“scientific” reports whose shady data and methodologies the agency
refuses to share with industries, citizens or even Congress.

It was only in May 2012 that EPA decided which US counties met new 2008
ozone standards that cut allowable ground-level ozone levels from 80
parts per billion to 75 ppb. Now EPA wants to slash allowable levels
even further: to 70 or even 60 ppb, equivalent to 70 or 60 seconds in 32
years.

The lower limits are essential, it claims, to reduce smog, human
respiratory problems and damage to vegetation. EPA Administrator Gina
McCarthy says a 600-page agency staff report strongly recommends this
reduction, and her Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee agrees. They
all say the lower limits are vital for protecting public health,
especially “at-risk populations and life stages.” Her decision will
ultimately involve “a scientific judgment” and will “keep people safe,”
Ms. McCarthy assures us.

Under terms of a convenient federal court settlement, EPA must issue its
proposed new standards by December 1 of this year, and make a final
decision by October 2015. The process will be “open and transparent,”
with “multiple opportunities” for public hearings and comment
throughout, she promised.

EPA has offered little transparency, honesty or opportunity for fair
hearings and input by impacted parties thus far, and we should expect
none here. But other problems with this proposal are much more serious.

If the 60 ppb standard is adopted, 85% of all US counties would likely
become “non-attainment” areas, making it difficult to establish new
industrial facilities or expand existing plants. Even in Big Sky,
clean-air Wyoming, Teton County could be out of compliance – mostly due
to emissions from pine trees!

A Manufacturers’ Alliance/MAPI study calculated that a 60 ppb ozone
standard would cost the US economy a whopping $1 trillion per year and
kill 7.3 million jobs by 2020. A Louisiana Association of Business and
Industry and National Association of Manufacturers study concluded that a
60 ppb rule would penalize the state $189 billion for compliance and
$53 billion in lost gross domestic product between 2017 and 2040. That’s
$10 billion per year in just one state.

But the standard would save lives, EPA predictably claimed, citing 2009
research directed by University of California-Berkeley School of Public
Health Professor Michael Jerrett. The study purportedly tracked 448,000
people and claimed to find a connection between long-term ozone exposure
and death.

Other researchers sharply criticized Jerrett’s work. His study made
questionable assumptions about ozone concentrations, did not rely on
clinical tests, ignored the findings of other studies that found no
significant link between ground-level ozone and health effects, and
failed to gather critically important information on the subjects’
smoking patterns, they pointed out. When they asked to examine his data,
Jerrett refused.

Michael Honeycutt, chief toxicologist for the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality, says Jerrett and EPA exaggerate health risks from
ozone. The Texas Public Policy Foundation told EPA the agency needs to
consider “the totality of studies on this issue, rather than giving
exclusive weight to a single study,” the foundation emphasized.
Unfortunately, EPA almost always focuses on one or two analyses that
support its regulatory agenda – and ignores any that might slow or
derail its onrushing freight train.

Even worse, those lost jobs and GDP result in major impacts on the
lives, livelihoods, liberties, living standards, health, welfare and
life spans of millions of Americans. And yet, EPA steadfastly refuses to
consider these regulatory impacts: for ozone, carbon dioxide, soot,
mercury and other rules.

Then there is the matter of outright deception, collusion and fraud at EPA, via these and other tactics.

One such tactic is sue-and-settle lawsuits. Agitator groups meet with
EPA officials behind closed doors and agree on new rules or standards.
The agency then conveniently misses a deadline, “forcing” the activists
to sue. That leads to a court hearing (from which impacted parties are
excluded), and a judgment “forcing” the agency to issue new regulations –
and even pay the agitators’ attorney fees! American Lung Association,
NRDC, Sierra Club and EPA sue-and-settle collusion resulted in the new
ozone proposal.

This clever sue-and-settle tactic was devised by none other than John
Beale – the con artist who’s now in prison for bilking taxpayers out of
$1 million in salary and travel expenses for his mythical second job as a
CIA agent. It defies belief to assume his fraudulent propensities did
not extend to his official EPA duties as senior policy advisor with his
boss and buddy Robert Brenner, helping Ms. McCarthy and her Office of
Air and Radiation develop and implement oppressive regulations. Indeed,
his own attorney says he had a “dysfunctional need to engage in
excessively reckless, risky behavior” and “manipulate those around him
through the fabrication of grandiose narratives.” A US Senate report
details the sleazy practice.

As to the “experts” who claim lower ozone limits are vital for protecting public health, there’s this.

The American Lung Association supports the EPA health claims – but
neglects to mention that EPA has given the ALA $24.7 million over the
past 15 years. Overall, during this period, the ALA received $43 million
via 591 federal grants, and Big Green foundations bankrolled it with an
additional $76 million. But no one is supposed to question the ALA’s
credibility, integrity or support for EPA “science.”

EPA also channels vast sums to its “independent” Clean Air Scientific
Advisory Committee, which likewise rubberstamps the agency’s pollution
claims and regulations. Fifteen CASAC members received over $181 million
since 2000. CASAC excludes from its ranks industry and other experts
who might question EPA findings. Both EPA and CASAC stonewall and
slow-walk FOIA requests and deny requests for correction and
reconsideration. Even congressional committees get nowhere.

As Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House on Science, Space and
Technology Committee, noted in a letter, 16 of the 20 CASAC members who
“peer-reviewed” the ozone studies also helped to write the studies. That
makes it even less likely that their reviews were “independent.”

That Senate report, The Chains of Environmental Command, also notes that
the Obama EPA has been deliberately packed with far-left environmental
activists who work with their former Big Green colleagues to shape
policy. They give radical groups critical insider access and also funnel
millions of taxpayer dollars through grants to their former
organizations, often in violation of agency ethics rules.

These arrogant, unelected, unaccountable, deceitful, dictatorial elites
think they have a right to impose ozone, carbon dioxide, ObamaCare and
other diktats on us, “for our own good.” They are a primary reason
American businesses and families are already paying $1.9 trillion per
year to comply with mountains of federal regulations – $353 billion of
these costs from EPA alone. The damage to jobs, livelihoods, liberties,
living standards, health and welfare is incalculable.

The next Congress should review all EPA data, documents and decisions,
root out the fraud and collusion, and defund and ultimately reverse all
regulations that do not pass muster. The principle is simple: No data,
honesty, transparency or integrity – no regulation, and no taxpayer
money to impose it.

Via email

Time is up for wind production tax credits

“The private sector can be expected to develop improved solar and
wind technologies which will begin to become competitive and
self-supporting on a national level by the end of the decade if assisted
by tax credits and augmented by federally sponsored R&D,”
testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittees on Energy
and Commerce offered by the American Wind Energy Association and others.

A reasonable statement of belief that wind energy just needs a little
help to get off the ground and become financially viable. And it
was reasonable, in 1983, when it was made.

Now, thirty one years later, the powerful Big Wind lobbyists are at the
trough once again asking for another extension of tax breaks. Wind
Production Tax Credits that distort the electricity market harming the
ability of their competitors to invest profitably in alternative,
competing electric generation sources.

Yet, those who promote this 21st century upgrade of 15th century
technology continue to claim that if Congress just gives them one more
fix they will be able to compete.

In the immortal words of Nancy Reagan, the lame duck Congress should just say no.

They should say no, because investment in wind energy production needs
to stand on its own feet with the best technology emerging, and those
that lag being left behind. The natural selection of the
marketplace needs to hone the industry so the most efficient, productive
technologies can thrive and help meet our nation’s energy needs.

The lazy way is to get the government to provide the competitive difference allowing even poor performers to thrive.

Wind, and every other energy source, should compete on the level field
of the marketplace without the corrosive effects of government tainting
the game.

While others worry about the dangers that expanded wind energy pose to
bird life as subsidized projects are being placed in some of nature’s
most important flyways, and others express concern about the decimation
of the bat population in some agriculture dependent areas, ultimately
the question for Congress has to be – Is wind energy sustainable, or is
it a permanent government dependent?

After more than 30 years living in Uncle Sam’s basement playing video
games and eating Cheetos, its time for this industry to be kicked out of
the nest. It’s time for wind to fly.

Congress will be deciding whether to extend Wind Production Tax Credits
in the weeks ahead, and for wind’s own sake, it is time allow them to
die. It is time for this industry to compete, for better or worse.

It’s time for Congress to mercifully end the Wind Production Tax Credit once and for all.

Severe bird population declines in Europe. Windfarms the probable culprit

In an article published in The Guardian on November 7th, the RSPB (Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds) is quoted saying that since 1980,
across 25 European countries, house sparrow numbers have declined by 147
million, a 62% drop to 90 million. wind turbine bird kill According to
the same report, starlings have fallen by 45 million, down to 40
million. As for Skylarks, their population went down by 37 million, to
43 million today. Says the author of the article, “It’s principally
agricultural intensification that is behind the crisis.” (1)

Populations ranging from 40 to 90 million birds, for the most common of
passerine species, are surprisingly small, spread as they are over 25
countries. Thus, if the researchers quoted by the RSPB are correct in
their estimates, we are entitled to conclude that wind turbines and
their power lines will have a significant impact on the number of all
passerines flying our skies, eating our insects etc. Indeed, we know for
instance that, in Spain alone, wind turbines kill 6 to 18 million birds
and bats a year (2). Supposing that Europe has about 5 times as many
wind turbines as Spain, the death toll for Europe would be 30 to 90
million birds and bats per annum – i.e. roughly 10 to 30 million birds a
year, given that bats are attracted to wind turbines and killed about
twice as often as birds. Comparing the numbers, and all things being
equal, it is obvious that bird populations will erode further on account
of wind farms, much faster than previously thought.

But no mention is made of this in the article. It’s not surprising, as
both the RSPB and The Guardian are promoting the installation of ever
more wind farms across Europe.

We also learn from The Guardian that the population of some raptors “is
on the up in Britain”. This assertion sounds suspicious to us at
Save the Eagles International, for two main reasons:

A) - the article quotes no figures, no studies and no dates, and

B) - we know that raptors are attracted to windfarms (2), and killed in significant numbers (3).

The truth is that raptors have been recuperating in the UK since a very
low point reached after two centuries of persecution. Some species
were wiped out. Then, a law was enacted to protect birds of prey, and
reintroduction programmes were launched, e.g. for the Red Kite and the
White-tailed Eagle.

Protection and reintroduction caused raptors' numbers to go up. But the
question is: until when? We suspect that the recuperation of raptors in
Britain has stopped with the advent of wind turbines, which attract and
kill them. Actually, judging from the high mortality of raptors in other
countries' windfarms, their UK population is most likely to be on the
decline as well. But Britons are not being kept informed of these
things. To wit: in 2013 came due the decadal census of golden
eagles. But nothing happened, and to those who inquired it was replied
that the interval between these surveys had been changed from 10 years
to 12. This does nothing to allay our fears that Scottish golden eagles
are being decimated by wind turbines, many of which are spinning their
deadly blades in their habitat.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

20 November, 2014

Another blast on the trans-fat trumpet

For many years, the received wisdom in the medical literature was that
eating saturated fat was bad for you and likely to give you heart
attacks. That was always nonsense and, in one of those 180 degree
turns so common in the medical literature, has recently been
abandoned. Such fats are good for you these days.

Greenies and food freaks (largely overlapping categories, it would seem)
hopped on the bandwagon a decade or so ago and began their usual
coercive strategies. They pressured food manufacturers to stop
using such fats. Vegetable oils were the thing. And, like a
lot of their products, the food manufacturers crumbled.

But vegetable oils were not really very suitable for making cakes and
cookies. But if you added some extra hydrogen atoms to the
vegetable oils, you could get a suitable result. The hydrogenated
oils became known as trans fats.

But just as there is no such thing as a happy Greenie so there is no
such thing as a happy food freak. Various claims supported by
problematical research appeared which said that trans fats were bad for
you too. They also could damage your heart.

So the food manufacturers again mostly crumbled and now use a lot of
palm oil instead of saturated fats and trans fats. The cake you buy has
had an adventurous past.

So now palm oils are under attack. To produce enough palm oil,
lots of new trees have to be planted and to plant those trees you have
to chop down lots of other trees that were already there -- and
that will not do at all! So the limited supply of palm oil drives
up its price and makes it too expensive for some food manufacturers --
who have therefore stuck with their good ol' trans fats. So the
shriekers still have a satisfying campaign to wage. And below
(below the chevrons) is the latest shot in the war.

It features work by the hyperactive and normally skeptical Beatrice
Golomb but does her no credit. The research has not yet been
published in the journals so I have not been able to look closely at it
but it clearly has one large problem: It is based on self-reports,
which are very susceptible to biases of various sorts. In
particular, self-reporters tend to tell you either what they think you
want to hear or what they think will make themselves look good.

And that is a very obvious contaminant in the research below.
Because people are always being told how evil cakes and cookies are,
consumption of them is unprestigious so many of those answering a
self-report questionnaire will under-report how many of such evil
products that they consume -- while people less influenced by popular
fads will be little bothered by admitting to their actual diets.
So who are the cake and biscuit gourmands? Fatties and the poor
most likely. And what do we know about the poor? As Charles
Murray showed long ago, they have lower IQs. Shocking of me to
mention it, I know, but facts are chiels that winna ding, as the Scots say.

And the memory task used by the gorgeous Dr Golomb (pic below) is
IQ-related. So the wicked eaters probably had lower
IQs. So it seems likely that Dr Golomb's finding is entirely
artifactual -- a product of her research methodology rather than
information about the world.

Other research: For one summary of the weak science behind the "trans-fat" hysteria, see here.
Trans fats have only a temporary effect on blood chemistry and the
evidence of lasting harm from them is dubious. By taking extreme groups
in trans fats intake, some weak association with coronary heart disease
has at times been shown in some sub-populations but extreme group
studies are inherently at risk of confounding with other factors and are
intrinsically of little interest to the average person.

Food manufacturers should of course revert to using saturated fats, now that medical opinion is in their favour -- JR

UPDATE

I was pleased to receive a prompt and scholarly reply from Dr Golomb
about my post. Some scientists can get very defensive and snarky
if their work is criticized but she did not. It says much for her
character. I reproduce the reply below:

Dear John Ray,

It is true that the findings are based on a food frequency
questionnaire, and observational data are *always* subject to potential
unmeasured confounding. That is why we never use(d) the word "cause" but
only describe higher trans fat consumption as "associated" with worse
memory. (I can't exactly say higher "reported" trans fat consumption
because it wasn't actually trans fat consumption they reported.)

On the plus side, though, the data from which the analysis was done were
collected in 1999-2004, a privileged time window vis a vis trans fat
assessment -- after trans fat abstraction from foods was added to
analysis of the Fred Hutchinson Food Frequency Questionnaire, but before
the FDA trans fat labeling requirement that made it easy for people who
were health conscious to more readily limit trans fats.

{Of note, this was also before most of the positive press about
chocolate, when chocolate consumption was still widely viewed as a vice
(hard to imagine that time was so recent). Yet, despite this, more
frequent chocolate consumption was linked favorably to memory, and to
body mass index. (We presented the former finding a couple years ago --
someone else's findings connecting the two got a lot of attention in the
NY Times, I understand, last week; the latter finding has been
replicated, e.g., in a study of European adolescents, and
according to a Principal Investigator who contacted us, was also found
in a randomized study, supporting causality; and a study in rodents
found that cocoa-derived epicatechin led to reduced fat mass with
calorie consumption unchanged). Meanwhile, trans fats emerged as
adversely associated with both outcomes. This makes sense given that
chocolate is rich in antioxidants and has compounds that support cell
energy (e.g. via mitochondrial biogenesis and vascularity), while trans
fats are prooxidant (and proinflammatory), and adverse to cell
energy. (The hippocampus, a brain area important in memory, is
especially vulnerable to cell death in settings of inadequate energy.)

We are encouraged by the fact that, so far, our findings based on the
dietary data have almost to a one been replicated, and/or have
experimental support from animal research (adding the element of
causality). For instance we previously found that, even adjusted for
calories and exercise, trans fat consumption was linked to higher BMI
and waist circumference. (By the way, I will mention since we have
discovered that some scientists -- i.e. peer reviewers! -- are confused
on this point, there is no violation of the second law of thermodynamics
in that statement. Calories are disposed of in a range of ways -- heat
generation, fat deposition, creating blood vessels and mitochondria --
and just what is done with them is subject to modulation by signaling
pathways, in turn influenced by dietary factors.) Consistent with this,
primate data show that incorporating trans fats, without changing
calories, leads to increased deposition of abdominal/visceral fat.

Anyhow, thanks for sending, and thanks for your interest!

Cheers,

Beatrice

I replied:

Beatrice

Thank you for that interesting reply

I think you should have a closer look at the recent literature on
anti-oxidants. I think we are midway through an 180 degree turn
there. The latest thinking is that antioxidants are actually bad
for us. The body needs plenty of oxidants. So pro-oxidants could
be a GOOD thing!

Cheers
JR

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Eating cookies and cakes could damage your memory - regardless of your age

Fats found in some biscuits, cakes and processed foods could have a harmful effect on memory, researchers have warned.

The fats, known as trans fats, are used both in processed food and in
restaurants, often to improve the texture, shelf life or flavour.

They are created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil to make it more
solid, which is why they are often called partially hydrogenated oils.

Now, a study of 1,000 healthy men aged under 45 found those who ate the most trans fat had worse scores in a word memory test.

The link remained after taking account of age, education and depression.

Study leader Dr Beatrice Golomb, of the University of California, San
Diego School of Medicine, said: ‘Trans fats were most strongly linked to
worse memory, in young and middle-aged men, during their working and
career building years.

‘From a health standpoint, trans fat consumption has been linked to higher body weight, more aggression and heart disease.

‘As I tell my patients, while trans fats increase the shelf life of foods, they reduce the shelf life of people.’

The research team studied adults who had not been diagnosed with heart
disease. They were asked to complete a dietary questionnaire, from
which the researchers estimated participants' trans fat consumption.

To assess memory, researchers presented participants with a series of
104 cards showing words. Each person had to state whether each
word was new or a word duplicated from a previously seen card.

Each additional gram a day of trans fats consumed was associated with an estimated 0.76 fewer words correctly recalled.

For those eating the highest amounts of trans fats, this translated to
an estimated 11 fewer words – a reduction of 10 per cent in words
recalled compared to adults who ate the least trans fat.

The average number of words correctly recalled was 86, according to
research presented at the American heart Association’s Scientific
sessions 2014 in Chicago.

Trans fat is widely considered the worst kind for your heart, even worse
than saturated fat, which can also contribute to heart disease.

The UK food industry in recent years has reduced or eliminated industrially produced trans fat in foods.

Current dietary surveys suggest consumption levels provide less than one
per cent of food energy, below the recommended two per cent maximum –
about 5g a day.

The Food and Drug Administration is taking further steps to reduce the amount of artificial trans fats in the US food supply.

IT is called a ‘lake-effect’ snowstorm — and it has paralysed cities
across the US, with temperatures falling to freezing in all 50 states,
including Hawaii.

Lake-effect snow is produced during cooler atmospheric conditions when
cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, providing
energy and picking up water vapour, which freezes and is deposited on
the leeward shores.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers calls it ‘thunder snow’. “The steam
from the lake ... (is) still much warmer than the air,” he said. “The
air is in the teens and the water in the 40s. That steam comes up and
wants to rise. That rise ... creates a thunder storm but it’s so cold it
doesn’t rain. It just snows.”

The phenomenon paralysed the upstate New York city of Buffalo yesterday,
forcing state police on snowmobiles to deliver blankets to stranded
motorists on the main highway across New York State.

At least four people were killed in the storm, CNN reports.

One of the storm-related deaths was a vehicle accident, said Peter
Anderson, a spokesman for the county executive. Three others were
cardiac arrests as a result of shovelling.

In a region accustomed to highway-choking snowstorms, this one is being
called one of the worst in memory. “This storm is basically a
knife that went right through the heart of Erie County,” said Erie
County Executive Mark Poloncarz. “I can’t remember and I don’t
think anyone else can remember this much snow falling in this short a
period.”

The equivalent of a year’s worth of snow is going to pound some areas over a three-day period, Poloncarz said.

Meteorologists say temperatures in all 50 states fell to freezing or below on Tuesday.

That included Hawaii, where the temperature at Mauna Kea on the Big Island dropped to -0.5 degrees Celsius (31 Fahrenheit).

They say the low temperatures were more reminiscent of January than November.

The southeast wasn’t spared. Schools closed in the North Carolina
mountains amid blustery winds and ice-coated roads. In Atlanta,
tourists Morten and Annette Larsen from Copenhagen were caught off-guard
by the sub-freezing weather as they took photos of a monument to the
1996 summer Olympics at Centennial Olympic Park.

“It’s as cold here as it is in Denmark right now. We didn’t expect
that,” Larsen said, waving a hand over his denim jacket, buttoned
tightly over a hooded sweatshirt.

The National Weather Service warned that the snow, generated by cold air
blowing over the warmer Great Lakes, would continue through Wednesday
and could eventually total 1.8 metres in places.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo deployed 150 member of the National Guard
state militia to help clear snow-clogged roads and remove abandoned
vehicles.

The White House forged ahead Monday with yet another piece of its
climate change agenda and bragged that Republicans are powerless to stop
it.

A presidential task force unveiled a report on how communities across
the country can prepare for the effects of global warming. In all, the
recommendations on “climate preparedness and resilience” could cost the
federal government more than $100 billion to protect drinking water
supplies, shore up coastlines against rising sea levels and take other
preventive measures.

The recommendations and subsequent expenses are just two pieces of an
ever-expanding slate of global-warming that is sure to come under the
microscope when Republicans assume control of the Senate in January.

But legal analysts say the Republicans have little ammunition to fight
back, short of shutting down the federal government to stop
Environmental Protection Agency funding.

White House officials, keenly aware of the executive power Mr. Obama
holds on the issue of climate change, openly mocked incoming Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues.

“I believe the president will complete actions. It is a top priority of
his and I don’t believe they can stop us,” White House counselor John
Podesta told reporters on a conference call Monday. “Not withstanding
Sen. McConnell making this a top priority to leave the status quo, to
leave the air dirtier.”

White House officials on Monday also detailed some the expenses
associated with the task force recommendations, including $88 billion
for North Atlantic states to protect against rising sea levels, $6
billion for Midwestern states to combat rising temperatures and $40
billion to improve California’s drinking water systems.

The report comes on the heels of other recent steps, including Mr.
Obama’s greenhouse gas emissions deal with China. Under that agreement,
the U.S. pledged to cut its emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025,
while China merely said it will cap emissions no later than 2030.

To meet that goal, the administration is relying on its unprecedented
restrictions on power plant pollution — regulations that have led to
accusations of a “war on coal” — and new auto fuel-efficiency standards,
among other steps.

Republicans appear ready to fight the president’s climate change agenda
tooth and nail. After the GOP captured the Senate, Mr. McConnell,
Kentucky Republican, said reining in the EPA would be a “top priority.”

He reiterated those comments over the weekend. “They’ve been on a
rampage all across the country. And I think coal is the most conspicuous
example, but it’s happening in a lot of other areas and I think you’re
going to see bipartisan support for trying to rein them in,” he told an
audience in Frankfort, Kentucky.

The larger climate change debate is intertwined with the proposed
Keystone XL oil pipeline, the approval of which could come up for a
Senate vote as early as Tuesday. The House already has passed
legislation deeming the pipeline approved.

The White House, however, has hinted the president will veto the bill.

Imagine you are talking to a tobacco advocate who claims that he has a
new strategy for winning the hearts and minds of the public:

“We will explain to the public that we contribute to economic growth.”

“We will explain to the public that we create a lot of jobs.”

“We will link our industry to our national identity.”

“We will stress to the public that we are addressing our
attackers’ concerns—by lowering the emissions of our product.”

Would you be convinced? I doubt it, because none of these strategies
does anything to address the industry’s fundamental problem—that the
industry’s core product, tobacco, is viewed as a self-destructive
addiction. So long as that is true, the industry will be viewed as an
inherently immoral industry. And so long as that is true, no matter what
the industry does, its critics will always have the moral high ground.

Sound familiar? Substitute “fossil fuels” for “tobacco” and you have the
fundamental communications problem the fossil fuel industry–and anyone
who supports fossil fuels–faces.

Opponents of coal, oil and natural gas have successfully portrayed
fossil fuel energy as a self-destructive addiction that is destroying
our planet and the energy industry as fundamentally immoral.

Why is the industry viewed as immoral? Because for decades,
environmentalist leaders have made a false but unanswered moral case
against the fossil fuel industry—by arguing that it inherently destroys
our planet and should be replaced with environmentally beneficial solar,
wind and biofuels.

According to this argument, it destroys our planet in two basic ways: by
increasing environmental dangers (most notably through catastrophic
global warming) and depleting environmental resources (through using
fossil fuels and other resources at a rapid, “unsustainable” pace).

There is only one way to defeat the environmentalists’ moral case
against fossil fuels—refute its central idea that fossil fuels destroy
the planet. Because if we don’t refute that idea, we accept it, and if
we accept that fossil fuels are destroying the planet, the only logical
conclusion is to cease new development and slow down existing
development as much as possible. That’s what gives moral standing to
something like U.S.-China carbon emissions agreement, which deserves to
be seen as an immoral cap on human progress.

I have come to believe that the moral case against fossil fuels is not
only false, but is the exact opposite of the truth. Fossil fuels don’t
take a clean environment and make it dirty, they take a dirty
environment and make it clean. They don’t take a safe climate and make
it dangerous, they take a dangerous climate and make it safe. The
industry doesn’t deplete resources, it creates resources out of
once-useless raw materials.

This is the moral case for fossil fuels. It will give us the moral high
ground in the debate over fossil fuels. It is the subject of my new book.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline to carry crude oil from Canada will
only benefit our northern ally, and will neither lower gas prices in the
U.S. nor entail a “massive jobs bill for the United States,” President
Obama said while traveling in Asia last week.

During a press conference Friday in Yangon, Burma, Obama was asked about
the project, which has been under review by the State Department for
six years and faces a Senate vote on Tuesday.

“Understand what this project is,” he replied. “It is providing the
ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to
the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else.” “It doesn’t have
an impact on U.S. gas prices,” he added.

Obama’s remarks contradict other assessments – including those of the
Departments of State and Energy – that the 1,179-mile pipeline could not
only create thousands of American jobs and pump billions of dollars
into the U.S. economy but also increase the nation’s energy security.

The American Petroleum Institute, the trade association that advocates
on behalf of the U.S. oil and gas industry, on Monday issued a plea to
Obama about the pipeline and its benefits.

“Mr. President, do not outsource the 42,000 American jobs this pipeline
represents, to move Canadian and U.S. energy resources from North Dakota
and Montana, to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast,” API President and
CEO Jack Gerard said in a statement.

“Americans are embracing our domestic energy renaissance but they can’t
fully benefit from it unless there is a robust infrastructure system to
transport the fuels they demand,” he added.

In a commentary on Friday the Wall Street Journal questioned Obama's
understanding of global economics and the oil trade. “Someone
should tell the President that oil markets are global and adding to
global supply might well reduce U.S. gas prices, other things being
equal,” it said. “A tutor could add that Keystone XL will also carry
U.S. light oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. “So even if he
thinks that bilateral trade only helps Canada, he’s still wrong about
Keystone.”

TransCanada, the company in charge of the Keystone XL pipeline
construction, calls it “the definition of shovel-ready infrastructure
project,” and cites the State Department’s own findings. (The department
is in control of the project’s destiny because of its “international”
element.)

“Almost overnight, Keystone XL could put 9,000 hard-working American men
and women directly to work,” TransCanada says on its website. “The U.S.
State Department’s Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
found that the project would support more than 42,000 direct and
indirect jobs nationwide.”

“In addition to construction jobs, an estimated 7,000 U.S. jobs are
being supported in manufacturing the steel pipe and the thousands of
fittings, valves, pumps and control devices required for a major oil
pipeline,” it states.

“TransCanada has contracts with more than 50 suppliers across the U.S.,
including companies in Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Oklahoma, South Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, Maryland, New York,
Louisiana, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Ohio, Arkansas, Kansas, California and
Pennsylvania.”

TransCanada also cites a Canadian Energy Research Institute prediction
that Keystone XL will add $172 billion to America’s gross domestic
product by 2035 and will create an additional 1.8 million person-years
of employment in the United States over the next 22 years.

The pipeline will also make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil, thus
increasing energy security, it says, citing a Department of Energy
study.

“Keystone XL Pipeline will have the capacity to transport 830,000
barrels per day of crude oil from Canada and the continental United
States to refineries on the Gulf Coast, where it can displace much of
the higher-priced oil those refineries currently import from overseas,”
TransCanada says.

“This view is backed up by a December, 2010 U.S. Department of Energy
study which states: ‘Increased Canadian oil imports will help reduce
U.S. imports of foreign oil from sources outside of North America.’”

In a move seemingly unheard of just weeks ago, the U.S. Senate is set to
vote on Tuesday on legislation that would approve the Keystone project,
a bill passed by the House of Representatives last week.

Obama has said he has not changed his position on the pipeline but has
not specifically said he would veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

Asked again about the project at the end of a G20 summit in Brisbane,
Australia on Sunday, Obama raised another potential objection – climate
change.

“We’re going to let the process play itself out,” he told reporters.
“And the determination will be made in the first instance by the
Secretary of State. But I won’t hide my opinion about this, which is
that one major determinant of whether we should approve a pipeline
shipping Canadian oil to world markets, not to the United States, is:
does it contribute to the greenhouse gases that are causing climate
change?”

Australian PM will soon look like a genius for refusing to drag Australia to yet another climate fiasco

Even as he continues to win plaudits from visiting Chinese and Indian
leaders, the high priests and priestesses of the fourth estate are in
full-throated rebellion against Tony Abbott. Defensive, embarrassing,
timid, insular, clumsy, flawed, weird, cringeworthy – this is just a
sampler of media comment on Abbott’s performance at the G20 in Brisbane.

But it is perhaps better to see Abbott as someone who refuses to agree
at all times with outspoken, self-appointed pressure groups that breed
around controversial questions. He makes an inviting rhetorical target
precisely because he embodies that down-to-earth quality in our national
spirit that has been all but obliterated by the modern obsession with
courting fashionable opinion. His bluntness – such as his defence of Big
Coal or his threat to “shirtfront” Putin – takes him where
mealy-mouthed politicians fear to tread.

I say this as someone who disagrees with his stance on Ukraine. It is
one thing to try to subject the Russian-backed rebels to some scrutiny
for 17 July; it is another thing for the leader of a middle power to
issue dire threats and warnings to a nuclear power with vital strategic
interests at stake in a region that has been in its sphere of influence
for centuries.

All things considered, however, Abbott’s diplomatic conduct in recent days has been defensible.

Start with the China trade deal, a major victory for our exporters that
will add tens of billions of dollars to the economy. The prime minister
promised to clinch unprecedented and lucrative agreements with Japan,
South Korea and China by the end of the year. His foreign affairs and
trade team have achieved this goal with aplomb. The three nations
account for about half of all our exports.

The critics were having a field day feasting on Abbott for daring to
talk about his government’s domestic policy challenges; never mind that
the leaders were invited to the G20 opening session to discuss how
domestic politics impede a pro-growth reform agenda.

Then there is the G20 growth agreement itself, which will dramatically
improve the lives of people all around the world, so long as nations
deliver on their promises. Even Michael Gordon, one of Fairfax Media’s
many Abbott critics, has conceded that for the first time the world’s
richest economies have committed themselves to a specific (and
ambitious) growth target and they have been prepared to allow
independent bodies to scrutinise their approaches.

We are told that on climate change, the G20 leaders spectacularly
wrong-footed Abbott. Yet he has merely defended the national interest
and kept faith with the Australian people who gave him an electoral
mandate to abolish Julia Gillard’s widely unpopular carbon tax. We are
also told that Paris is the moment when the world will come together to
save us from an excess of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a fair bet
Abbott’s position will be vindicated at the United Nations climate talks
next year.

Shortly before Brisbane, Beijing concluded a bilateral accord with
Washington in which they agreed (on a non-binding basis) to begin
reducing their annual emissions by 2030. The understanding is clearly
that, since Obama signed up to this deal (and indeed presented it as a
triumph), he will not push the Chinese any further at next year’s
meeting in Paris.

Meanwhile, Obama needs to ask the US Congress to appropriate $3bn for
the global climate fund. Republicans will oppose it, and many Democrats
repudiated Obama’s energy agenda in the recent midterm elections. No
member of the visiting Washington press corps, judging from the press
conference on Sunday, evidently thinks the issue is an American
priority. Congress won’t legislate a carbon tax or a national emissions
trading scheme.

As for China, their leaders’ priority is to grow their economy at 7-8%
annually and to reduce poverty; and the cheapest way of doing so is via
carbon energy (president Xi did not even mention climate change in his
address to parliament yesterday.) True, Beijing is investing in
renewable energy projects and piloting cap and trade schemes in some
provinces. But China is also building a coal-fired power plant every
8-10 days and its net emissions continue to escalate steadily (on 1990
levels, Australia is set to cut its greenhouse gas emission by 4% by
2020.)

Any “deal” at Paris will merely give China and India a free rein until
the 2030s without any binding obligation to be monitored and scrutinised
by the west on their actual behaviour. That is why Abbott is wise to
make any Australian climate policies conditional on a legally binding,
verifiable, enforceable and genuinely global agreement to replace the
Kyoto protocol. Even the Germans have essentially done that.

What is shaping up now, as Benny Peiser of the London-based Global
Warming Policy Forum predicts, is a huge blame game over the likely
failure to agree to a post-Kyoto treaty. China and India will blame the
west for its failure to deliver $100 bn per annum – yes, $100bn – that
was promised at Copenhagen. Obama and the left will blame the
Republicans. The EU will blame the Americans. Climate enthusiasts and
developing nations will blame all and sundry.

And Abbott will look like a genius for keeping Australia on the margins of yet another climate summit fiasco.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

19 November, 2014

Is global warming pushing up the price of sushi?

Since there has been NO global warming for 18 years, attributing
recent events to it is just careless journalism. There may indeed
have been warmer seas off Chile but fluctuating ocean currents are
the likely cause of that. If I remember rightly, the El Nino/La
Nina oscillation was first observed off Chile

Sushi prices in restaurants and supermarkets are tipped to soar after a
sharp increase in one of the key costs of creating the Japanese dish.

A large proportion of sushi, which combines raw fish or vegetables with
cooked vinegared rice, contains farmed shrimp, prawns or salmon.

The cost of the main feed for farmed fish has jumped by almost 50 per
cent in two weeks to reach a record high, according to reports.
The feed, called fishmeal, is a brown powder made from dried fish bones
and the trimmings of small marine species such as anchovies.

Rising sea temperatures led to a drop in anchovy catches in Peru, the
world's largest exporter, pushing up prices. A tonne of fishmeal now
costs $2,500, according to the Financial Times, up from $1,689 at the
end of October.

Fishmeal prices have risen fourfold in a decade due to climate change and increased demand, with around four per cent more farmed fish being eaten every year.

The increased costs are expected to be passed on to diners as
restaurants and cafés serving sushi put up prices to maintain their
margins.

The most popular sushi consist of raw, prawns, salmon and shrimp and rice. Most of the raw fish is farmed.

The growth of sushi, which has become fashionable in Britain and other
western nations over the past few years, and the general popularity of
fish this year led to global farmed fish consumption surpassing that of
"captured" fish for the first time

Obama: ‘We Are Going to Contribute $3 Billion to the Green Climate Fund'

But where is he going to get the money from?

Speaking at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia on
Saturday, President Barack Obama vowed to contribute $3 billion from the
U.S. Treasury to the United Nation’s Green Climate Fund.
"We are going to contribute $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund so we
can help developing nations deal with climate change,” said Obama.

The Green Climate Fund says that it aims to promote a “paradigm shift” in the use of energy and in development.

“The Fund will contribute to the achievement of the ultimate objective
of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),”
the fund says on its website. “In the context of sustainable
development, the Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards
low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing
support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change, taking into
account the needs of those developing countries particularly vulnerable
to the adverse effects of climate change. The Fund will be guided by the
principles and provisions of the Convention.”

This fund to which Obama intends to funnel $3 billion in U.S. taxpayer
money lists among its board members Ziqian Liang, the deputy director
general of the International Department of the Ministry of Finance of
the People’s Republic of China. It also lists as board members Ayman
Shasly, and international policies consultant with the Ministry of
Petroleum and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia; and Jorge Ferrer
Rodriquez, a minister counsellor with the Multilateral Affairs and
International Law General Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Cuba.

“We cannot forget the need to lead on the global fight against climate
change,” Obama said in his speech at the University of Queensland.

“Here in the Asia Pacific, nobody has more at stake when it comes to
thinking about and then acting on climate change,” Obama said. “Here, a
climate that increases in temperature will mean more extreme and
frequent storms, more flooding, rising seas that submerge Pacific
islands. Here in Australia, it means longer droughts, more
wildfires. The incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef
is threated. Worldwide, this past summer was the hottest on
record. No nation is immune, and every nation has a responsibility
to do its part.”

Obama called on younger people to become climate change activists.

“But let me say, particularly again to the young people here:
Combating climate change cannot be the work of governments alone,” Obama
said. “Citizens, especially the next generation, you have to keep
raising your voices, because you deserve to live your lives in a world
that is cleaner and that is healthier and that is sustainable. But
that is not going to happen unless you are heard.”

The Associated Press cited former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth who said that he
did not believe Obama could get the $3 billion to give to this U.N. fund
without the approval of Congress.

The AP reported: “It wasn't immediately clear where Obama planned to
find the money. Sen. Timothy Wirth, vice chairman of the United Nations
Foundation and a politician who has been on both House and Senate budget
committees, said he doesn't see how the Obama administration can get
the money without approval from a Republican Congress, which he said is
unlikely to happen.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who is the senior member on the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee, issued a statement criticizing
Obama’s pledge.

"President Obama’s pledge to give unelected bureaucrats at the U.N. $3
billion for climate change initiatives is an unfortunate decision to not
listen to voters in this most recent election cycle,” Inhofe said. “His
climate change spending priorities, estimated to be $120 billion since
the beginning of his administration, were on the ballot, and Americans
spoke.

“The President’s climate change agenda has only siphoned precious
taxpayer dollars away from the real problems facing the American
people,” said Inhofe. “In a new Congress, I will be working with my
colleagues to reset the misguided priorities of Washington in the past
six years. This includes getting our nation’s debt under control,
securing proper equipment and training to protect our men and women in
uniform, and repairing our nation’s crumbling roads and bridges. These
are the realistic priorities of today.”

“Ideology and vested interests continue to dominate the public debate in
Europe and elsewhere irrespective of the attempts to bring knowledge
and science based advice in the picture,” he said.

Mr Juncker’s final decision to sack Prof Glover came after France made
it clear to him that her opinions on GM technology were unacceptable and
that the post should be scrapped.

“She’s controversial because of her views on GM. Juncker doesn’t like
the idea of GM crops being approved by the EU on scientific grounds.
Even worse, she had upset the French,’ said an EU source.

As the former prime minister of Luxembourg, a country that along with
France, Austria, Greece and Hungary, that has banned, and is opposed, to
the use of GM crops on political grounds, Mr Juncker's personal views
are well known.

On taking the post as commission president, despite opposition from
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, Mr Juncker has announced plans to
review EU rules on authorising biotechnology in order to allow countries
to ban their use.

Mr Juncker has also come under intense pressure from France, MEPs,
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and lobby groups to abolish Professor
Glover’s post because of her views.

“The current chief scientific adviser presented one-sided, partial
opinions on the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture,
repeatedly claiming that there was a scientific consensus about their
safety,” said a letter in July signed by Greenpeace and other green
groups.

“We hope that you as the incoming commission president will decide not to nominate a chief scientific adviser.”

Last September, Mrs Glover incensed anti-GM countries, such as Mr
Juncker’s Luxembourg, by telling a Scottish scientific conference that
there was “not a single piece of scientific evidence” to support bans of
biotechnology on safety grounds.

“No other foodstuff has been so thoroughly investigated as GM,” she
said. “Opposition to GM, and the benefits it can bring, is a form of
madness I don’t understand.”

Julie Girling, a Conservative MEP, accused Mr Juncker on going back on a
commitment that Prof Glover’s job was safe that he had given to a
meeting in the European Parliament in July.

“I fear Mr Juncker has caved in to the green lobby. They have been very
vociferous,” she said. “He has reneged on promises he gave to us.”

“At a time when we need to address serious concerns around food
security, energy security and the collective EU response to the threat
of climate change; it is deeply concerning that the voice of science
should be stifled,” said Meurig Raymond, the president of the National
Farmers Union.

A spokesman for Mr Juncker denied that Mrs Glover had been sacked on political grounds.

“The post automatically ended with the old commission,” she said. “He is
keen on having good quality scientific advice but he has yet to make up
his mind how to organise it.”

Greenpeace have welcomed Mr Juncker’s decision to axe the post and
claimed that Prof Glover had “ended up hindering” the provision of
“wide-ranging and transparent scientific advice”.

“This is not about being for or against issues like GM food, contentious
chemicals, nanotechnology or climate change,” said Marco Contiero,
Greenpeace’s EU agriculture policy director.

During her presentation at the Bayer CropScience Corn and Soybean Future
Forum Julie Borlaug told the audience they are not doing a good job of
communicating what they are doing to the broad general consuming
audience. That raised a few eyebrows.

What she suggests is making message more personal and not so polarizing
as we sometimes see with the GMO debate as a good example. Activists are
using emotion to make their points and I think we need to get emotion
in our messaging too. That doesn’t exclude including scientific
information.

Mischa Popoff comments:

What??? Where does Julie Borlaug get off telling people they’re not doing a good job of communicating?

She’s the one who fails to speak out against tax-subsidized organic activists who want GMOs to be banned.

She’s the one who thinks the organic industry shouldn’t be criticized
even though her grandfather openly criticized anyone who rejected
science in agriculture!

And worst of all, Julie Borlaug let President Obama off the hook when he
wrote a lukewarm letter of support for the science of genetic
engineering without clearing up where he stands on GMO banning and
labeling campaigns. Julie just let him off the hook! She didn’t ask him
to clarify his comments, and in fact supported him in his calculated
indecision.

Thomas Edison never “engaged” with the public over how great the light
bulb was. The only reason people like Borlaug want to blame farmers is
because she’s done such a horrible job of defending this new science
from attacks launched by tax-funded organic activists. And why? Because
she’s reluctant to offend organic activists. But sometimes being right
requires offending those who are wrong.

Who seems to be winning the debate long term?

It’s impossible to say. Sure, we won Colorado and Oregon… but Oregon is
already home to the 6th county in America to ban GMOs. Meanwhile, we
lost Maui last Tuesday, and Vermont was a huge loss earlier in the year.

And however things go at the ballot box, remember that things were going
great for DDT back in the 1960s. Rachel Carson never called for DDT to
be banned. And yet in 1972 it was banned, resulting in over 1 million
deaths a year – mostly children under the age of 5 – from preventable
diseases like malaria and dengue fever in the Third World.

This is one debate where you simply don’t know if you’re going to win or lose until you’re at the finish line.

Despite opposition from Greens and farmers, NSW is pushing to get
coal seam gas extraction up and running -- as it already is in Qld

THE NSW Aboriginal Land Council will miss out on a ­series of valuable
mining licences as part of the Baird government’s coal seam gas revamp.

Resources Minister ­Anthony Roberts announced plans last week to reopen
the CSG industry, which has been beset by safety fears and ­community
protests, in order to boost gas supplies and lower household bills.

As a first step, the government is cancelling 16 pending gas exploration
applications put on ice during chief scientist Mary O’Kane’s study of
the CSG industry and its extraction methods.

Six of those applications ­belong to the NSW Aboriginal Land Council and
cover exploration for conventional petroleum gas deposits and possible
CSG extraction sites in the state’s far west.

Land Council chairman Craig Cromelin said losing the applications was a
blow to indigenous communities, who had hoped to secure a jobs and cash
windfall through mining.

“We certainly think we’re being unfairly treated,” Mr Cromelin said.

“If Aboriginal people are going to break out of the ­dependency system
that exists we’re going to have to be given an opportunity to prove that
we can make a fist of businesses like gas extraction.”

The Land Council, which had appointed a gas industry partner to help
develop its proposed mining projects, wants the government to reconsider
its plan to scrap its six applications. It is prepared to accept a ban
on CSG mining if it can proceed on the basis that it would mine gas
using other methods.

A spokesman for Mr Roberts said the Land Council would be able to
reapply, should the land where it wants to explore become available
again under the state government’s new CSG regime, which is expected to
be formalised next year.

“New areas of exploration will only be released after an assessment of
economic environmental and social factors,” the spokesman said.

Australian uranium shipments planned for 2015 as India ramps up nuclear power

Greenies LOATHE uranium and try to stop Australia exporting it

The uranium industry is hoping to make trial shipments to India next
year as the nation makes plans to move to 25 per cent nuclear power by
2050.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Indian leader Narendra Modi have
discussed the supply of Australian uranium for India's nuclear power
plants.

It follows their signing of a safeguards agreement in New Delhi in
September, overturning a long-standing ban on uranium exports to the
subcontinent.

In his address to federal parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Modi
said he saw Australia as a major partner in his country's quest to boost
electricity production and address climate change.

"(We seek) energy that does not cause our glaciers to melt," he
said. "Clean coal and gas, renewable energy and fuel for nuclear
power."

The pair discussed energy security and what Mr Abbott called Australia's
"readiness and willingness" to supply uranium to India for peaceful
purposes.

"If all goes to plan, Australia will export uranium to India - under
suitable safeguards ofcourse - because cleaner energy is one of the most
important contributions that Australia can make to the wider world," Mr
Abbott said.

The agreement is now being examined by the parliamentary treaties
committee, which will close submissions on November 28. There are
also talks between officials on administrative arrangements.

Both the treaties process and the administrative arrangements must be
finalised before Australian uranium producers can start exports to
India.

Minerals Council uranium spokesman Daniel Zavattiero said the industry
expected to start shipments next year. "The industry position is
things are moving okay," he said. "We expect some point next year
it will come into force and become operational, then we can start on
shipments and sales."

Initial sales are expected to start on a small scale, but the outlook is strong.

The International Energy Agency estimates that while nuclear provides
three per cent of India's power today, it will grow to 12 per cent by
2030 and 25 per cent in 2050. India plans to invest $96 billion in
nuclear plants to 2040, with 21 operating now, six under construction
and 57 planned or proposed. "It's very positive for us," Mr
Zavattiero said.

The agreement stipulates India must only use the uranium for peaceful
purposes that adhere to recognised international safety standards.
It is controversial because India has refused to sign the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty despite possessing an arsenal of atomic
weapons.

Australia has the largest share of uranium resources in the world but
currently exports only 8400 tonnes a year, valued at over $820 million.

If approved by the state's Minister for Environment Albert Jacob, the
mine is expected to produce as much as 70 million tonnes per annum of
iron ore for a mine life of 30 years, Rio's Pilbara division is on track
to export around 270 million tonnes in the 2014 calendar year, so the
new mine would contribute a meaningful amount to the company's
production volumes as well as sustaining pressure on the region's
smaller miners.

A sharp fall in the iron ore price this year to around $US78 a tonne has
put serious pressure on junior Pilbara iron ore miners, many of which
are struggling to break even and are blaming Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton
for flooding the market and causing prices to crash.

The project is part of Rio's long-term plans to grow its Pilbara exports
to 360 million tonnes per year, with seeds for the growth sewn in
November 2013 when Rio revealed its "breakthrough pathway for iron ore
expansion in Australia".

That pathway proposed to build cheaper brownfields expansions at mines
such as Yandicoogina and West Angelas, and delay an investment decision
on new, more expensive greenfields mines such as Koodaideri and
Silvergrass.

The company said that an investment decision on Silvergrass has been
deferred to the third quarter of 2014 and the earliest decision on the
Koodaideri deposit has been postponed to 2016.

Rio has been approached for comment about whether the EPA verdict will
alter its plans to hold off on a decision to develop the mine.

EPA chairman Dr Paul Vogel has set 14 conditions for the development of
the mine and surrounding infrastructure including strict rehabilitation
and offset requirements and the creation of an exclusion zone to protect
local species. The proposal was first brought to the EPA in 2012 and
was assessed under the authority's highest level of scrutiny.

Dr Vogel said Rio had actively sought to avoid, minimise and
rehabilitate environmental impacts through the proposal's design and had
conducted numerous studies to address issues raised in the public
submissions. Five public and eleven agency submissions were received
during the comment period. The proposal is now open to a two week public
appeals period before going to the Minister for a final decision.

WHO would have thought it? A US president comes to Australia with
the specific intention of damaging the Australian government politically
on climate change, while a Chinese president comes here with nothing
but gifts.

Xi Jinping’s accomplished, well-considered speech to parliament
yesterday contained no references to climate change and no implicit
criticism of Australia. After all, there are other forums for that
issue, China is not committed to any carbon emissions targets and why
would you go out of your way to embarrass your host?

The contrast with Barack Obama was staggering. More than that, Xi was
charming, respectful and helpful to all Australians he mentioned. He
completed the free-trade agreement, which is a big win for both
countries. But more generally his speech was one of reassurance and
reasonable ambition.

Xi touched on some of the ­issues important to him and his government:
China would remain a nation of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
But he presented these values in a way designed to soothe and reassure.
More than that, the substance of his message was one of reassurance more
generally to the whole Asia-Pacific ­region. China was a peaceful
country, he said, and repeated. China had suffered bullying and
­oppression. It would not visit these indignities on other nations.

Given how robustly the Abbott government has backed Japan’s strategic
re-emergence, and protested against Beijing’s declaration of an air
defence identification zone around the disputed Senkaku/­Diaoyu islands,
as well as declining recently to join, at least for now, China’s new
infrastructure bank, many analysts in Washington and Australia had
expected some overt display of Chinese displeasure.

But the Chinese seem to value their relationship with the Abbott
government, certainly to the extent that they would not embarrass their
host by emphasising disagreements. Of course, the Chinese are being nice
to everyone at the moment, including the Americans and even the
­Japanese. The question remains whether this will be the character of
Chinese attitudes into the future.

ALMOST everything you’re told about Barack Obama’s “breakthrough” deal
with China on global warming is a con. But, God, listen to the
spin.

President Obama told ecstatic students in Brisbane on Saturday that last
week’s deal to limit carbon dioxide emissions would help save our Great
Barrier Reef and “I want that there 50 years from now”.

Greens leader Christine Milne insisted it showed the Prime Minister Tony
Abbott “is completely out of step with the rest of the world”.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said it recognised “human activity is
already changing the world’s climate system”, and “we most certainly
need to address climate change as the presidents of China and the United
States have done”.

Red China was going green, agreed the warmist ABC, since “the most
concrete target is to have 20 per cent of China’s energy produced from
renewable sources by 2030”.

Hear all that? Every claim is actually false, fake or overblown,
as so often with the global warming scare. Here are the five
biggest falsehoods told about this “breakthrough”.

First, Labor is wrong: this deal proves nothing about global warming. In
fact, there has still been no warming of the atmosphere for 16 years,
contrary to almost every prediction.

Forget the excuse that the missing heat is hiding in the deep ocean.
NASA researchers last month said a new study had found the “waters of
Earth’s deep ocean have not warmed measurably since 2005”.

Nor, incidentally, have we seen the biennial bleaching of the Great
Barrier Reef predicted in 1999 by Australian alarmist Professor Ove
Hoegh-Guldberg, a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.

Second, this is not a real deal. China, already the world’s
biggest emitter, is actually promising little more than what it always
planned — to let emissions keep soaring until 2030 as it makes its
people richer. China will cap its emissions only in 2030 — the
never-never — when its electricity supply is deployed and its population
is set to plummet.

In exchange, Obama promises to cut US emissions by 26 per cent of 2005
levels by 2025. But Obama’s term ends in two years and the
Republicans who now control Congress say they’ll try to block his
deal. Republican Mitch McConnell, the new majority leader in the
Senate, said he was “particularly distressed by the deal”, which
“requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years”.

And, to add to the phoniness, the deal is neither binding nor enforceable.

Third falsehood? No, this deal doesn’t show the Abbott Government is out
of step. The Government’s own planned cuts to emissions — 5 per
cent of 2000 levels by 2020 — are not wildly behind the US ones over a
similar time span.

If anyone is out of step it’s Labor, since China and the US plan to cut
their emissions not with a Labor-style carbon tax but with Liberal-style
direct action policies.

Fourth falsehood: China did not promise to get 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources, as many journalists report.

The deal instead says that 20 per cent will come from “non-fossil
fuels”, which in China’s case includes nuclear power. Indeed,
China plans to have at least five times more nuclear power by 2030, with
Sun Qin, chairman of the China National Nuclear Corp, confirming
earlier this year that “nuclear plants will play an important role in …
raising the proportion of energy produced by non-fossil fuel”.

And the fifth falsehood? The Greens and Labor don’t actually want
us to follow the lead of the US and China at all. Not when it
comes to how those promises are meant to be delivered.

That’s because most of America’s cuts to emissions come from fracking, a
technique that has given the US huge new supplies of natural gas,
cheaper than coal and more greenhouse-friendly. But the Greens
vehemently oppose fracking, and Labor wants it restricted.

As for China, it plans to have much of its non-fossil power supplied by
nuclear plants and controversial dams like the massive Three Gorges
project. But, again, Labor and the Greens oppose nuclear power and
fight new dams.

So without fracking, new dams or nuclear power, how could Australia
possibly match the US and China? How, given wind power is too
unreliable and solar hideously expensive?

So what a con you’re being sold. No, this isn’t a real deal.

To recap: China won’t cut emissions for another 16 years, and Congress
will oppose Obama. And reality check: Labor and the Greens
actually oppose the technologies the US and China most rely upon to cut
emissions.

Oh, and still the planet refuses to warm, for all Obama’s happy yammer.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

18 November, 2014

The Democrats’ climate change agenda is a loser

President Obama’s climate change policy played a key role in the midterm
elections and helped Republicans take control of the Senate.

Obama emphasized the elections were about his policies saying, “Make no
mistake, these policies are on the ballot, every single one of them.”
Judging by the results his climate change agenda got trounced.

Obama’s refusal to approve the Keystone XL pipeline hurt the re-election
prospects for three term Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA). After failing to
fight off two Republican challengers on November 4, Landrieu must face
Representative Bill Cassidy in a runoff on December 6.

Most damaging to the Democrats, however, was voter push back against Obama’s war on coal.

Obama’s anti-coal policies have devastated the coal mining industry
resulting in bankrupting two companies and thousands of job losses in
the coal dependent states of Kentucky and West Virginia.

McConnell got significant support in the coal mining region of Kentucky.
According to the Associated Press, McConnell received an eight-fold
increase in votes from the eastern part of the state this election
compared to 2008 — 64,000 vs 8,000, respectively.

While McConnell’s pro-coal vote was impressive, nothing compares to West
Virginia where Obama’s war on coal is responsible for the fundamental
transformation of the political makeup of West Virginia.

The transformation in West Virginia did not end with the historic
election of Capito. Obama’s anti-coal policies also resulted in a GOP
pick up of two seats in the House of Representatives and a change in the
state government.

Not only did Capito trounce Tennant in the open seat vacated by retiring
Democrat Jay Rockefeller, she became the first female Senator from the
state and the first Republican Senator in half a century.

In the House of Representatives, Republican Alex Mooney beat Democrat
Nick Casey in Capito’s former Congressional district and even more
significant Evan Jenkins beat Democrat Nick Joe Rahall who held the seat
for almost 40 years.

As a result, for the first time since 1922 the entire West Virginia delegation is Republican.

The gains in the state government were equally impressive. The state’s
House of Delegates Democrats lost 19 seats and now it’s controlled by
Republicans - 1933 was the last time that happened.

The West Virginia Senate is also now controlled by Republicans. After
the loss of seven Democrat seats the Senate was tied at 17 each but
after Daniel Hall switched parties the Republicans had a one seat
advantage.

The Republican wave was so strong in West Virginia it was rumored that
Democrat Joe Manchin was considering switching to the GOP but his
spokesman denied that claim stating Manchin will remain a Democrat.

The left has fallen head over heels in love with global warming ideology

by Lord Donoughue (Donoughue was often prominent in the Labour Party in his earlier years)

The issue of why the political left is overwhelmingly supportive of the
climate change alarmist ideology/faith, and hence there are relatively
few left wing sceptics, is quite complex and would take more space and
time than I intend to impose on you here. But may I, as a lifelong
Labour supporter, offer a couple of broad observations. They are by no
means comprehensive and omit many nuances. But they are major general
factors which I have observed in the party for 61 years, and in
Parliament for almost 30 years.

First is that most leftish British people get politically involved
because they genuinely believe they wish to contribute to the common
good in our society. (They tend to believe , rightly or wrongly, that
the right wing wishes to contribute to their own individual or class
good). At first this drew many to sympathise with Marxist ideology,
until the Soviets discredited that. More sympathised and many still do
with the social democratic ideals of equality and civil liberty, though
that position lacks the ideological certainties and claimed scientific
basis of old Marxism.

With the collapse of Marxism, there was created a vacuum on the left.
Those seeking an ideological faith to cling on to for moral certainty,
felt bereft. They also wanted a faith which again gave them a feeling of
still pursuing the common good of society, especially the new global
society, and even more a feeling of moral superiority, which is a
characteristic of many middle and professional types on the left.
Climate change and the moral common good of saving the planet, with its
claimed scientific certainties, offered to fill the vacuum. It may or
may not be a coincidence that the climate change faith gained momentum
in the 1990s immediately after Marxism collapsed with the Berlin Wall.

I notice that my Labour colleagues who are troubled by the cost of the
war on climate change, and especially when I point out that its costs
fall heavily on the poorer classes, while its financial benefits go to
rich landowners and individuals on the Climate Change Committee, still
won't face those facts because they want to cling on to the new climate
faith because they want to believe it is in the common good. They are
not bad or stupid people. Many are better and cleverer than me. But they
have a need for a faith which they believe is for the global good. They
don't want a moral vacuum. And the current leaders of the social
democratic parties in Britain and Europe are not offering them much
else. For Ed Miliband, who is not a bad or stupid man, but coming from a
Marxist heritage, when asked for more vision, he grasps climate change
like a drowning man clasping a lifebelt.

While this need persists and there persists the misconception that the
Green faith is somehow leftish and in pursuit of the common good, then
most on the political left will stay with it. To shake them it will be
necessary to show them that the costs of implementing climate alarmism
will actually destroy the economic hopes of the poor and is often a
cynical device to enrich the wealthy. That it enables self righteous
middle class posturers to parade their assumed moral superiority at the
expense of the poor. And that it's so-called scientific certainties are
very uncertain indeed. It is also necessary for the sceptical and
realistic side to show more publicly that they accept the proven aspects
of climate change (which every sceptic I know does) and care about the
genuine concerns of the environment (which the Greens ignore by
littering our landscapes with inefficient and costly windmills.)

My second point concerns the Stalinist tactics of the Green activists in
trying to suppress any questioning of their dogmatic faith and to
damage the lives and careers of any professional person who attempts to
examine this subject in an honest way which might undermine their
dogmatic claims. Their use of Holocaust language such as 'Denier',
implying their target is akin to a neo Nazi, is but one example of the
Stalinist mentality. In that political context, where any questioner is
so derided, it is no surprise that most Labour supporters choose not to
take the risk - especially when it immediately throws them into
confrontation with their embattled leader.

Sorry to go on so long. But they are my observational conclusions on why
it is not easy for the sceptical side to make progress on the political
left. Interestingly, polls suggest it is among Labour working classes,
always more practical than our Hampstead/Guardian types, that there is
the biggest dissent from the Green religion - and some of them are
already slipping off to UKIP, which shows more concern for their
suffering under the Green taxes.

This battle to bring understanding to Labour that its climate policies
punish its core supporters, will take a while to win, partly for the two
reasons I offer above.

We have frequently noted in these pages that the environmental movement
has a number of extremist elements that are anti-civilization in their
outlook and have a very mean authoritarian streak. Among other things we
have frequently cited the fact that many from the authoritarian Left
have drifted into this (and other) movements after their sugar daddy in
Moscow expired with the fall of the Soviet Union. However, this
extremism is now increasingly going mainstream. After the earth’s
climate has stopped warming for 18 years running (plus one month) in
spite of atmospheric CO2 rising by one third over the same period, many
apparently think the best course would be to shut up critics by force.

Let us first define the people who are on the receiving end of the
derogatory “denier” term (it is derogatory because it reminds of the
term “holocaust denier” and it is clear that this is the reason it was
picked). None of them “deny” that the climate is changing. It would be a
foolish thing to assert, given that the climate has always changed and
always will. The scientists who try to debunk climate alarmism are
simply not alarmist.

The vast bulk of them concedes that human activity likely has some
influence on the planet’s climate, but they believe that there is no
certainty about the size of this influence, and whether CO2 (which the
alarmists have declared to be the main “climate forcing” agent) really
has all that much to do with it. The paleoclimate record clearly
suggests that this is not the case, as CO2 increases in the atmosphere
have always followed warming periods with a considerable lag and not led
them in a single instance. Moreover, the historical climate record –
almost regardless of how far back one looks – shows that the earth’s
climate has frequently been far warmer than today, long before anyone
thought of burning fossil fuels.

In short, the skeptical argument boils down to: we do not know enough to
indict human activity. Much of what we observe could simply be natural
variation. Therefore, we should think twice before we take actions that
threaten to destroy economic growth and ultimately industrial
civilization. By now a powerful record of evidence is backing the
skeptics up. Alarmists have invented 52 different excuses over just the
past half year or so as to why their “predictive computer models” have
failed to predict the “pause” – or why, indeed, they have failed to
predict anything at all (the latest, and probably funniest excuse yet,
is that they “could have predicted it if they had a time machine and
could go back into the past”).

Again, it is important to remember here: not a single alarmist
prediction made since the late 1970s has come true – not one. However,
alarmism sells: it sells newspapers, it is loved by the political class,
as it justifies ever greater government interference in the economy,
and it is therefore the source of a huge gravy train of scientific
grants. Many scientists try to be as alarmist as possible for this very
reason: it keeps the grant money flowing. When they think no-one’s
looking, they admit to each other what a “travesty” it all is (their
words, from the “Climategate” e-mails).

Indeed, there is travesty galore. For instance, supposedly
scientifically neutral government-owned agencies have repeatedly been
caught falsifying past temperature records (here is a recent example,
but there are many more as a quick Google search reveals) – and always
with the same outcome: to make the most recent warming period look much
worse than it really was.

Last time we wrote on this topic we mentioned efforts to “remove the
Holocene from the climate record” (i.e., the fairly recent past since
the end of the last ice age) – it is clear why: the modern warming
period looks like an unimpressive dimple at the lower end of the
temperature range on the chart.

Meet the soon-to-be-excised Holocene. Allegedly human-induced
“catastrophic warming” is in the tiny green box to the right so as to
help you spot it

It should be pointed out that not even the alarmists deny any of the
data we mention above (otherwise there wouldn’t be a scramble to explain
and if possible downplay the significance of the “pause”). We would
also like to stress that just because someone is a member of what could
be broadly termed the “alarmist camp”, it certainly doesn’t mean they
are not doing serious scientific work. Skeptics spend a great deal of
time studying everything that is published by the mainstream and there
are many areas of agreement.

The problem as we see it is only that the worst of the alarmists have
developed a “gatekeeper” function at scientific journals, trying to
suppress all research that contradicts their claims and that they enjoy a
monopoly on the media echo chamber, which is incessantly used to
propagate the most ludicrous claims. Even worse, the government-mandated
switch to “green energy” already has serious negative economic
ramifications in several European countries, most notably Germany (a
“disaster”) and Great Britain (a “fiasco”).

However, in light of the fact that the “global warming” meme appears to
be collapsing on the hard rocks of reality, authoritarians apparently
feel the time to hold back is over and are frequently coming out of the
closet of late.

Skeptics Must be Silenced by All Means – Killing Them is OK Too

We all know that skeptics have been smeared for many years as being in
the employ of industrial polluters. This was always a lie, but it is
clear that skeptics are largely excluded from government funding (i.e.,
they do not receive money that is forcibly extracted from tax payers),
so much of the little funding they get presumably does come from the
private sector – but the claim that they are funded by ‘polluters’ is a
lie. What we didn’t know is that the smear campaign is a coordinated
project that was started in 1991 by Al Gore’s senate office; a recent
paper reviews the damning evidence.

Smears about funding are one thing though – demands to jail or kill
skeptics are a significant step up in rhetoric. First we came across
something that we thought reflects the authoritarian mindset of the Left
quite nicely. Australia’s government bureaucracy in the capital
territory (ACT) has just approved government funding for a theater
project with the rather unsubtle title “Kill Climate Deniers”. Here is
an excerpt from the list of successful Arts Fund applicants:

2015 ACT Arts Fund successful applicants – Project Funding

The Project Funding round is offered once a year and presents the ACT
community with the opportunity to propose one-off arts activities.

Successful 2015 Project Funding applicants were announced in September
2014. Below is a list of successful applicants by name in alphabetical
order.

A Chorus of Women: $24,990 to assist with costs of performances of a community oratorio ‘A Passion for Peace’.

Art Song Canberra Inc: $6,713 to assist with costs of presenting art song concerts, classes and events.

Art Space: $15,600 to assist with costs of a creative development project with artists living with disability.

Aspen Island Theatre Company: $18,793 to assist with costs of the
creative development of a new theatre work, ‘Kill Climate Deniers’.

As conservative columnist Andrew Bolt remarked:

“The Left is the natural home of the modern totalitarian – and of all
those who feel entitled by their superior morality to act as savages.
How does the ACT Government justify spending taxpayers’ money on a
theater work entitled ”Kill Climate Deniers”? What sane Government
donates to a project urging others to kill fellow citizens, even as a
“joke”? Are these people mad? The theater company says it’s not into
actual killing, just “exploring” ways to get political change:

“We are not advocating the murder of carbon lobbyists! We are instead
seeking to explore the question: What does it take to achieve political
change in this society?” the company said.

You know, like killing. If I were thug enough to write a play with the
title “Kill Climate Scientists” would I get a grant? Would the ABC rush
to present my defense?”

This comes on the heels of the similarly unsubtle “no pressure” advertising campaign in Britain that was ultimately retracted.

However, the Left’s search for a “final solution” to the problem of
skeptics is continuing. In March an article by Adam Weinstein was posted
at “Gawker”, entitled “Arrest Climate Change Deniers”, in support of a
previous jeremiad along similar lines by a professor of philosophy at
the Rochester Institute of Technology, one Lawrence Toricello. So if you
say that 18 years of zero warming and 36 years of failing predictions
by alarmists should give us pause and represent a good reason to rethink
the entire alarmist argument, you are “criminally negligent” and should
be jailed for daring to air your dissent. Interestingly, already the
first two sentences of the article are baseless assertions/lies:

“Man-made climate change happens . Man-made climate change kills a lot
of people. It’s going to kill a lot more. We have laws on the books to
punish anyone whose lies contribute to people’s deaths. It’s time to
punish the climate-change liars.”

Even though, for rather obvious reasons, they don’t call it “global
warming” anymore, that is what they mean by “man-made climate change”.
The fact of the matter is however that regardless of what caused the
most recent warming period, it has stopped. So it would be correct to
write: “if there actually is man-made climate change, it isn’t happening
anymore”.

The claim that it “kills a lot of people” is so ludicrous it seems
hardly deserving of comment, but allow us just to point out here the
obvious basic fact that something that is not happening cannot “kill”
anyone. Even if the warming period had continued, this claim would be
nonsense.

It seems very difficult to assert that the Roman and medieval warm
periods (both were much warmer than today) “killed a lot of people”, as
they were actually periods when human civilization flourished nicely. By
contrast, it is an apodictic certainty that the “little ice age” after
the medieval warming period did kill a lot of people, as there were
serious harvest failures all over the world.

Anyway, who cares about such pesky facts? We must arrest and jail the
“deniers”! But you are graciously allowed to remain a “simple skeptic”.
Adam Weinstein will presumably draw up a plan of how to distinguish
between “simple skeptics” and “harmless men in the street” and those he
thinks are “dangerous deniers” that need to be jailed. Note his
condescension toward the common man who is evidently too stupid to
understand the Weinstein-approved truth. Such condescension is a typical
attribute of leftist authoritarians:

“Those denialists should face jail. They should face fines. They should
face lawsuits from the classes of people whose lives and livelihoods are
most threatened by denialist tactics.

Let’s make a clear distinction here: I’m not talking about the man on
the street who thinks Rush Limbaugh is right, and climate change is a
socialist United Nations conspiracy foisted by a Muslim U.S. president
on an unwitting public to erode its civil liberties.

You all know that man. That man is an idiot. He is too stupid to do
anything other than choke the earth’s atmosphere a little more with his
Mr. Pibb burps and his F-150’s gassy exhaust. Few of us believers in
climate change can do much more—or less—than he can.

Nor am I talking about simple skeptics, particularly the scientists who
must constantly hypo-test our existing assumptions about the world in
order to check their accuracy. That is part and parcel of the important
public policy discussion about what we do next.

But there is scientific skepticism… and there is a malicious,
profiteering quietist agenda posturing as skepticism. There is
uncertainty about whether man-made climate change can be stopped or
reversed… and there is the body of purulent pundits, paid sponsors, and
corporate grifters who exploit the smallest uncertainty at the edges of a
settled science.

I’m talking about Rush and his multi-million-dollar ilk in the
disinformation business. I’m talking about Americans for Prosperity and
the businesses and billionaires who back its obfuscatory propaganda. I’m
talking about public persons and organizations and corporations for
whom denying a fundamental scientific fact is profitable, who encourage
the acceleration of an anti-environment course of unregulated
consumption and production that, frankly, will screw my son and your
children and whatever progeny they manage to have. Those malcontents
must be punished and stopped.”

So is it OK if we call Adam Weinstein and his ilk Climate Nazis? We
actually think it is. As an aside, Weinstein also dredges up the “97%
consensus” claim, which has been debunked so completely one should
really be embarrassed to even mention it. Needless to say, science has
never advanced by “consensus” anyway. Nearly all scientific discoveries
in the history of mankind that have revolutionized our understanding of
the world have faced massive resistance from the establishment status
quo (from Galileo to the discoverer of plate tectonics, Alfred Wegener,
who was disbelieved and denounced by the scientific community for a full
50 years).

Mr. Weinstein is by far not the only authoritarian Leftist who wants to
jail climate skeptics. We have previously reported on humanity-hating
eco-fascists like Finnish radical “activist” Pennti Linkola or UK
scientist James Lovelock. The former simply wants to depopulate the
planet and put all his surviving enemies into concentration camps and
“re-education” gulags, while the latter thinks it is “time to put
democracy on hold”, so that governments can cram his vision of what
should be done down our throats by force. It is actually proper to call
the leftist radicals advocating such tactics “eco-fascists” as well,
because that is precisely what they are. After all, the socialist and
fascist ideologies are really only two sides of the same authoritarian
coin.

In late September, prominent environmental attorney Robert Kennedy jr.
(a member of the Kennedy clan that is one of the “political dynasties”
in the Land of the Free) also let his mask slip. As Charles W. Cooke
reports on this “aspiring tyrant”:

“Blissfully unaware of how hot the irony burned, Robert Kennedy Jr.
yesterday took to a public protest to rail avidly in favor of
censorship. The United States government, Kennedy lamented in an
interview with Climate Depot, is not permitted by law to “punish” or to
imprison those who disagree with him — and this, he proposed, is a
problem of existential proportions.

Were he to have his way, Kennedy admitted, he would cheer the
prosecution of a host of “treasonous” figures — among them a number of
unspecified “politicians”; those bêtes noires of the global Left,
Kansas’s own Koch Brothers; “the oil industry and the Republican echo
chamber”; and, for good measure, anybody else whose estimation of the
threat posed by fossil fuels has provoked them into “selling out the
public trust.” Those who contend that global warming “does not exist,”
Kennedy claimed, are guilty of “a criminal offense — and they ought to
be serving time for it.”

Cooke’s entire article is well worth reading. Here is one more excerpt
in which he reminds Mr. Kennedy that once one decides to prohibit free
speech in one area, there will soon no longer be any area that will be
off-limits in justifying more such prohibitions.

“When Robert Kennedy contends that there ought to be “a law” with which
the state “could punish” nonconformists, he is in effect inviting
Washington, D.C., to establish itself as an oracle, to ensconce in aspic
a set of approved facts, and to cast those who refuse to accede as
heretics who must be hunted down and burned in the interest of the
greater good.

As the blood-spattered history of the human race shows us in appalling
and graphic detail, the wise response to the man who insists that the
Holocaust did not happen, or that 2 + 2 = 5, or that the United States
is geographically smaller than Sweden is to gently correct him — and, if
one must, to mock or ignore or berate him, too. It is never — under any
circumstances — to push him through the criminal-justice system. The
cry “but this is different” remains in the case of climate change
precisely what it has always been: the cry of the ambitious and the
despotic. Once the principle of free speech is subordinated to
expedience, circumstances can always be found to justify its
suppression.”

We would note to this that not a single skeptic has as of yet called for
the jailing or extermination of members of the Church of Global Warming
– so even if we knew nothing about the underlying issues, we would find
it easy to decide which group we’d rather support. Since we do know a
little about the issues, it is an even easier decision.

The Green Party on Wednesday apologized to victims of sexual abuse for its support of paedophilic groups in the 1980s.

"We deeply regret these events that are included in our early party
history," Green co-president Simone Peter said at the presentation of a
report on the party's past.

An election platform from the Alternative Green Initiative List (AGIL),
the Green party's predecessor, took on the interests of paedophiles by
suggesting that sex with minors should be decriminalised, providing the
sex was free from violence or the threat of violence.

The document was brought to light during the election of 2013, as it was
one of the party's key candidates, Jürgen Tritten, then a student
running for city hall, who had cosigned it.

Peter said her party should have owned up and apologized for their support before.

"We again apologize to all victims of sexual abuse who, through Green
party debates in the 1980s were hurt and felt ridiculed," she said.

In their early days, the Greens sought out support by catering to
minority interest groups as part of a "leftist liberalism" policy with
roots in the 1960s.

Slavery Was The Norm In The Pre-hydrocarbon Era The Democrats Want Us To Go Back To Living In

During the pre fossil fuel era life was short and brutal and the main
sources of energy were human and animal labor. Human slavery was the
norm. In the post fossil fuel era life expectancy soared. Factories
powered by fossil fuel produce our food, clothing and everything else we
need, use, and want to make our lives better. Trucks, trains and large
cargo ships powered by fossil fuel transport these products to our
friendly neighborhood store or now (via FedEx or UPS) our very door
step. Fossil fuel guzzling jets take a fraction of the time it did in
the past to whisk us to far off lands or visit our families living
hundreds of miles away. All of these wonders made possible by fossil
fuel could come to an end however. Civilization could revert back to a
pre fossil fuel era if the anti fossil fuel movement led by the
Democrats prevail.

The Democrats tell you that modern civilization can run on wind, solar
and other alternative sources of energy that will “save the earth” from
evil polluting fossil fuel carbon (aka CO2) emissions. What they don’t
tell you is that alternative sources of energy like wind and solar are
fossil fuel guzzling sources of energy thus will not reduce carbon
“polluting” emissions.

The Democrats also fail to disclose the fact Wind and Solar produce less
power during their life time than it takes to produce, use and dispose
of them. http://bit.ly/1vtGMBj

“Prieto is not alone in reaching such sobering conclusions. A 2013
Stanford University report, for example, calculated that global
photovoltaic industry now requires more electricity to make silicon
wafers and solar troughs than it actually produces in return. Since 2000
the industry consumed 75 per cent more energy than it put onto the grid
and all during its manufacturing and installation process.” What is
ironic is that if the Democrats were really interested in a fossil free
world Nuclear power and Hydro power would provide the answer which,
of-course, they are against.

The other elephant in the room is the inconsistency inherent in the
Democrat’s anti-fossil fuel ideology. The Democrats claim to
be the saviors of the poor when without cheap energy from fossil fuel
civilization will revert back to human and animal labor as the main
sources of energy when slavery was the norm. The bottom line is the
Democrats preferred alternative to fossil fuel cannot support modern
civilization.

What is even more nutty is the Democrats like Nancy Pelosi seem to
believe they can get rid of fossil fuel while at the same time providing
people free health care that will allow them the opportunity to not
work for a living. Pelosi regarding the benefits of Obamacare
“Think of the economy where people could be an artist or a photographer
or, eh, a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order
to have health insurance” Earth to the Democrats if you really
believe people don’t have to work for a living, can get free health care
and all other sorts of free stuff from the government why are you at
the same time for driving up the cost of energy to the point it is
unaffordable? Why are you supporting wind and solar that are
fossil fuel dependent BIG CARBON FOOTPRINT sources of energy that use
more energy than they make? Are you insane?

Australia: Queensland government determined to get big coal mining project off the ground

Greenie pressure on banks means that finance for such projects is
hard to get so the State government is going to come to the party

Come hell, high-water or - worse - lack of private investment, the
Queensland government is going to make sure the Galilee Basin is "open
for business".

In his excitement at Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit on
Sunday, Premier Campbell Newman pre-empted Monday's big announcement
that the state government would be prepared to fund the infrastructure
needed to get the Galilee Basin projects happening.

"We'll be saying, if necessary, we'll be prepared to invest in
infrastructure, core infrastructure, common-use infrastructure, we'll be
making the case that we are prepared to do that to get this going," he
said on Sunday morning.

"The role of the government, given the financial situation we face these
days, the role would be to make targeted investments to help get
something going and then within a few years time exit those investments
so the private sector can then get on with it, but I stress, open to all
comers - we just want a new coal resource basin to be opened up."

Climate change and the need to take carbon emission reduction more
seriously may have hijacked the G20 agenda, but privately, Tony Abbott
reportedly repeated Australia's commitment to coal, an attitude Mr
Newman echoes.

The government sees the Galilee Basin as key to turning around the
state's economy. Gas projects initiated under the previous Labor
governments are transitioning from the construction to production phase
and shedding jobs at a rapid rate.

Mr Newman has said previously he wanted to see preliminary works on the
Galilee Basin projects, the most significant of which is the Indian
company Adani's Carmichael mine, set to be the largest coal mine in
Australia, begin early next year.

So far the private sector has had issues securing the funding needed to
begin work. Mr Newman has not said how the government would fund
the infrastructure or whether it would be part of its asset sales
agenda.

But the announcement has already created ripples. Director of
Energy Resource Studies Australasia at the Institute for Energy
Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Tim Buckley, said it was a
financially irresponsible decision, and labelled the Galilee Basin
projects "unviable". "Many would consider this a Government simply
pissing taxpayers' money up against the wall," he said in a statement.

"The people of Queensland and Australia should be outraged at this idea
of questionable politicians spending many billions of tax payer dollars
to make an unviable, unwanted and dangerous mega coal project a reality.

"The Galilee coal projects are totally commercially unviable. Any
project undertaken is highly likely to end up as a stranded fossil fuel
asset as the rest of the world rapidly transitions to lower carbon
solutions. Coal has entered structural decline – there is no two ways
about that fact."

Queensland Greens Senator Larissa Waters labelled it a bad decision, for
both the environment and economy. "Not only is this
environmentally disastrous, it's economically insane, especially when
you're spending the state's public wealth," she said.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

17 November, 2014

A BIG GREENIE ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA TODAY

Seven current articles below, including Mr Obama's latest effusion

University of Qld preaches Warmism

They think that you learn critical thinking by absorbing warmist
dogma, not by criticizing it. Course outline below. It's
clear that climate skepticism has got them rattled. It's an EDx
(online) course -- which makes it difficult to ask questions and answer
back. The University of Qld is one of the homes of "Mr. 97%" --
psychologist John Cook.

In my years doing
psychological research I grew accustomed to finding conclusions in the
work of my colleagues that were at variance with what they
actually found. And Mr Cook's work does not disappoint. As
you see below, the take-home message of his study was that "97% of
climate scientists conclude humans are causing global warming". What he actually found
however was that two thirds of the academic publications he surveyed
"expressed no position" on warming, probably suggesting that many of the
writers disagreed with it. Disagreeing with it explicitly is
perilous for a scientist these days

The
fact that UQ students are being taught the sort of deceptive nonsense
below goes a long way towards explaining why Obama got a rapturous
response from some UQ students when he gave a Warmist speech there

Making Sense of Climate Science Denial

Climate change is real, so why the controversy and debate? Learn to make
sense of the science and to respond to climate change denial.

About this Course

In public discussions, climate change is a highly controversial topic.
However, in the scientific community, there is little controversy with
97% of climate scientists concluding humans are causing global warming.

Why the gap between the public and scientists?

What are the psychological and social drivers of the rejection of the scientific consensus?

How has climate denial influenced public perceptions and attitudes towards climate change?

This course examines the science of climate science denial.

We will look at the most common climate myths from “global warming
stopped in 1998” to “global warming is caused by the sun” to “climate
impacts are nothing to worry about.”

We’ll find out what lessons are to be learnt from past climate change as
well as better understand how climate models predict future climate
impacts. You’ll learn both the science of climate change and the
techniques used to distort the science.

With every myth we debunk, you’ll learn the critical thinking needed to
identify the fallacies associated with the myth. Finally, armed with all
this knowledge, you’ll learn the psychology of misinformation. This
will equip you to effectively respond to climate misinformation and
debunk myths.

He knows how to sound good to the ill-informed, as Leftists usually
do. It's their stock in trade. Doing good is however usually
beyond them

U.S. President Barack Obama gave a landmark speech at the G20 Summit on
Saturday where his call for immediate action to protect the Great
Barrier Reef was met with rousing applause.

Conservationists have claimed that the U.S. President's urging should
force industrialisation along the Queensland coast to stop immediately.

Mr Obama piled pressure on the Abbott government to act on climate
change, declaring that natural wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef
were under direct threat from climate change.

And although Prime Minister Tony Abbott did not mention climate change
in his opening address to G20 leaders, it appears the government may be
backing down on the eve of the main leaders' event.

The U.S. President said today that no country was immune to the effects
of climate change and that everyone must play a role in fighting the
global phenomena.

'I want my daughters to be able to come back and I want them to be able
to bring their daughters or sons to visit, he told an audience at the
University of Queensland to loud applause. 'I want that there 50
years from now.'

Despite the official G20 agenda excluding the issue of climate change,
President Obama mirrored the concerns raised by protesters outside the
venue in South Brisbane, calling for developed nations to join in the
'global fight'.

While the Australian government attempted to keep the focus of the
Asia-Pacific leaders summit on economic growth and jobs, Mr Obama
steered the focus back to climate change, following the U.S. deal with
China to slash emissions.

The U.S. President also urged younger Australians to put pressure on
politicians to take action on the issue and committed $US3 billion to
the Green Climate Fund to aid developing nations to assist with
initiating economies that were cleaner-fueled.

Japan is also expected to unveil a $US1.5 billion contribution to the
fund over the G20 summit weekend. Civil society groups are urging
Australia to make its own contribution.

President Obama's speech to several hundred lucky students was one of
the hottest items on the G20 agenda, and he didn't disappoint

The Australian Marine Conservation Society said the US president had put
the reef's future front and centre, and the government must stop paying
lip service to serious concerns raised by UNESCO, the UN's
environmental arm.

UNESCO has given Australia until February to show it is properly
managing the Barrier Reef, and if the world body is not satisfied with
the response, the reef could be listed as a World Heritage site 'in
danger'.

Felicity Wishart, spokeswoman for the Marine Conservation Society said
that it was time for the Federal and Queensland governments to 'take
heed and act decisively.'

She claimed that the government had attempted to 'placate concerns by
whitewashing international consternation such as that expressed by
UNESCO and the World Heritage committee.'

Ms Wishart said that in order to reverse the trend, 'our governments
must stop the rapid industrialisation of the coastline, driven primarily
by plans for increased coal mining.'

President Obama also issued a stark warning to Russia over the
destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 and pleaded for the world
to act on climate change.

President Obama told the audience that Russian aggression was a 'threat' to the world

In the address, the president also urged the world to seal a global deal
on climate change, 'because I have not had time to visit the Great
Barrier Reef,' Mr Obama said, to a roar of laughter. 'And I want to come
back!'

The president also acknowledged Australia has had a 'healthy debate'
about action to stop climate change but he said that if China and the
United States could strike a deal on the global threat - as they did
earlier this week: 'We can get this done.'

After the address, Australian political bigwigs seemed to transform into
political groupies, delighting in receiving a handshake from the
president as he left the room.

IT doesn’t take much to fool the hopey-wishy media, as the announcement
of a ­non-binding agreement between the US and China on global ­warming
has so clearly demonstrated.

Labor and the Greens were also there, sucked in and trying to exploit
the empty pledge to wedge the Abbott government on its Direct Action
emission ­reduction plan.

Stripped of the pretentious verbiage, the announcement merely states
that the US and China have a non-binding intention to cut C02 emissions.

The Chinese have made a Peking duck out of the lame-duck US President
Barack Obama — who was resoundingly rejected by American voters at last
week’s midterm ­elections.

Reader Alan M. Jones put the Obama administration’s non-binding
intention “to achieve an economy-wide target of reducing emissions by 26
per cent to 28 per cent” by 2025 into perspective.

He found that the US ­reduction target, based on its peak 2005 emissions
baseline of 6112 million tonnes per year, if achieved, would bring US
C02 emissions to about 4523 million tonnes by 2025, or to about 5318
million tonnes by 2020, or in other words about 11 per cent below 2000
US levels of 5971 million tonnes.

Owing to a combination of sluggish economic growth under the Obama
presidency and the huge ­uptake of domestic gas, the US had already
dropped to almost exactly that level (5383 million tonnes) by 2012.

By contrast, the Abbott government has won ­binding legislation that
will see Australia reduce its C02 emissions by 2020 by 5 per cent below
its low 2000 ­levels, unconditionally, or 13 per cent below its
similarly relatively high 2005 C02 output.

While Labor, the Greens and their media friends at the ABC and Fairfax
Media have tried to beat up on the Coalition, the authoritative US
journal The Hill reports from Washington that senior Republican, Senator
James Inhofe, who will head the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee next year, says China can’t be expected to hold up its end of
the bargain.

“It’s hollow and not ­believable for China to claim it will shift 20 per
cent of its energy to non-fossil fuels by 2030, and a promise to peak
its carbon emissions only ­allows the world’s largest economy to buy
time,” ­Inhofe said. “China builds a coal-fired power plant every 10
days, is the largest ­importer of coal in the world, and has no known
­reserves of natural gas.

“This deal is a non-­binding charade.”

China accounted for more than 70 per cent of the world’s energy
consumption growth in 2011, according to the BP Statistical Review of
World Energy, and not ­unnaturally, its emissions have risen
correspondingly.

China’s chief negotiator at the Doha climate change conference, Xie
Zhenhua, told the Xinhua news agency that the country’s greenhouse gas
emissions — which rose 171 per cent between 2000 and 2011, and by just
under 10 per cent last year — would keep rising until its per capita GDP
had reached $20,000 to $25,000. It currently stands at $5000.

Taking anything the ­Chinese say at face value is risky though, as the
left-wingers’ bible The Guardian ­acknowledged in its report on the
non-binding deal.

The paper reported that “China’s environmental authorities are
notoriously opaque, making the true extent of its carbon emissions — and
its progress in mitigating them — difficult to assess. In June,
scientists from China, Britain and the US reviewed data from China’s
National Bureau of Statistics and found that the country’s total
emissions from 1997 to 2010 may be 20 per cent (1.4 billion tonnes)
higher than reported.”

While a raft of NGOs ­palpitate over Australia’s role in supplying the
energy that has lifted thousands of millions out of poverty in China and
elsewhere, left-wing organisations rail against C02, the tasteless,
odourless gas that is ­essential to plant growth and is boosting crop
­production globally.

One of Australia’s largest food producers, the Costa group, which is
expanding its Guyra tomato-growing glasshouse complex and increasing its
employees to about 470, generates about 1800 tonnes of C02 a year by
burning propane to keep the glasshouses at a constant temperature. This
C02 is ­indispensable to the growth of Costa’s tomatoes, as it is to all
forms of plant life, though green-left vegetarians won’t recognise this
fact.

What the luvvies like is the vibe of the empty statement. As Fairfax’s
rapidly shrinking print organs ­wistfully reported, “symbolism is the
most potent ­element”, as if there was some ­substance in the hot air
erupting from Beijing.

With global warming alarmists unable to explain the pause in rising
temperature, the failure of the IPCC to present any new data in its most
recent report, and the hollowness of the ­commitment made by the
world’s two biggest economies, Labor and the Greens have again shown
­themselves to be out of touch with reality.

Michael Asten, a professor of geophysics, points to inconvenient data that the IPCC has left out

THE climate lobby will be working the corridors of the G20 ­meeting in
Brisbane this weekend, using the recent Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change Synthesis Report and Climate Council ­commentary.

Curiously, neither has updated the underlying observational ­science
relating to climate change; the figures are subsets from the IPCC Fifth
Assessment Report, where data and literature review stops at 2012.
Observational data and climate model predictions are presented
separately, concealing the uncomfortable truth of the global temperature
­hiatus, which challenges the fundamental ­assumptions of the models.
It is a challenge that gets stronger every year as increasing
atmospheric CO2 content is unmatched by predicted temperature increase.

How would Joe Hockey fare if he went to the G20 with economic data that was two years out of date?

While scientists published in top journals treat the temperature hiatus
as fact, activists still deny its existence. Thus the Climate Council
(once a proud group of government-­funded scientists in the Climate
Commission, now a privately funded lobby group) claims, “Myth: The Earth
has stopped warming since 1998”. Use of the word warming is imprecise,
being interpreted as “temperature” or “heat content” dep­ending on the
argument of the moment.

The “heat content” approach hypothesised that warming of the deep oceans
was compensating for lack of global surface warming. This has been
studied in a series of important papers, most recently by William Llovel
and co-workers at the California Institute of Technology who used
quantitative observations of global ocean mass and temperature profiles
to show that the deep ocean has in fact cooled slightly in the past
decade.

Failure to include this in updated assessments by the IPCC and Climate Council is inexcusable.

The hiatus in temperature can also be studied using smoothed averages.
Both the Synthesis Report and the Climate Council report use old plots
that show a steady rise in smoothed temperature to 2010.

Yet NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies’ global temperature graphs
are updated monthly, show five-year averages, are publicly available on
the internet and show average temperatures peaked in 2004 and show a
decline for the following eight years. Since similar declines in global
temperature occurred in 1880-1910 and 1950-75, it is reasonable to ask
whether the present apparent decline is historically unusual, and why
our government science advisers ­persist in the view that steady
increases in atmospheric CO2 are the major driver of such changes.

If a downward trend in global temperature is confirmed in the next
decade, it will be no surprise — at least three recent peer­-eviewed
papers predict that — but such views are not even hinted at in the IPCC
or Climate Council reviews of possible scenarios.

The dichotomy between observational data and models is similarly marked
with sea-level data of the past 120 years. The rate of rise across the
past century is 1.7mm a year and has increased to about 3.2mm a year
across the past 20 years. The data shows that the fast 3.2mm a year rate
of rise has occurred twice in historic times (around 1860-80 and
1930-50). The IPCC modelling studies of sea level rise to 2100 show up
to 80cm of total rise by 2100, increasing from the present 3.2 to a
predicted huge 15mm a year. These projections have immense economic and
community importance, as they have been supplied to government and
planning bodies for consideration of restrictions on coastal land
development.

Given we have 20 years of over­lapping precise satellite
­alti­meter-observed data and the mod­els, we should have been given
comparisons between sea-level data and model predictions, and assessment
of any evidence for acceleration of the rate of rise in the first sixth
of this century. Yet neither the IPCC nor the Climate Council, or the
publicly funded CSIRO on its website, even admits the existence of
recent data such as that by Anny Cazenave and co-workers at the
Geophysical and Oceanography Laboratory, Toulouse, which shows that from
1994 to 2011 the rate of observed rise in global sea level decreased
from 3.5 to 2.5mm a year.

It is of great concern that bodies meant to provide scientific advice
are unable to admit that observations show the rate of sea level rise
going in the opposite direction to predictions for the first 15 per cent
of the model time span.

If Australian politicians get shirt-fronted at the G20 on climate
change, they should insist on briefings on recent observational data and
its implications for climate model predictions before committing
taxpayer dollars to the $100 billion a year UN-led Green Climate Fund.

Almost all NSW's coastal land from one end of the state to the other is
affected by the controversial 10/50 bushfire clearing laws, a
never-before-seen map drawn up by the NSW Rural Fire Service shows.

The laws allow people living near bushfire prone areas to remove trees
within 10 metres of their house without seeking any approval, leading to
concerns the green light would be given to lopping trees in
sought-after suburbs.

The map, which the RFS told the NSW parliament in August did not exist,
was obtained by Greens MP David Shoebridge after a Freedom of
Information battle with the fire agency.

Mr Shoebridge said it shows how much land is affected by the new laws.

"The potential reach of the 10/50 laws is far greater than previously thought," Mr Shoebridge said.

"The chainsaws are loose in the third of the state where almost
everybody lives, it looks like this is just the starting point for the
10/50 laws."

A spokesman for the Rural Fire Service said that "much of the NSW coast
has been identified by local councils as being bushfire prone land."

"However, it would be misleading to say that most of the coastline falls
within a 10/50 entitlement area, as much of this area consists of
national parks, public land and private land, on which there are no
homes," the spokesman said.

The Sun-Herald reported in August widespread concerns that the new 10/50
bushfire laws were being abused by some landowners up and down the
coast felling trees and shrubs for harbour views and development
potential rather than reducing bushfire risks.

Councils and community groups have complained that trees have been
disappearing overnight in some Sydney suburbs. Lane Cove residents
Corrine Fisher and Gaye White have recorded the felling of 240 trees in
their suburb since the introduction of the laws on August 1. Ms Fisher
said of those maybe five were for bushfire safety reasons.

Ms Fisher said an added complication has been that the chip bark from
the felled trees was being dumped or spread around the suburb, adding to
the bush fire risk. "This is a complete and utter policy failure," she
said.

The new laws were introduced to give people living near fire-prone
category I or category II bushland the ability to increase their level
of protection against fires, after the devastating blazes that destroyed
more than 200 homes last year.

An investigation by The Sun-Herald into the 10/50 laws revealed that
since the laws were introduced on August 1, trees were being stripped
from areas from Palm Beach to Pittwater, Mosman and Sutherland Shire to
improve views and property potential.

A critically endangered remnant rainforest has been being cleared on a
property at Fingal Head on the north coast and tree-lopping companies
advertised discount rates for streets banding together to clear unwanted
trees. Concerned residents have said almost all the central coast
appears to have been affected.

Fairfax Media reportedthis week that the trees on 92 per cent of Lake
Macquarie properties south of Newcastle, could be removed if the new
laws stayed.

After a public outcry, the RFS has agreed to review the laws and take
submissions made by the public, councils and community groups. The
spokesman said by the closing date they had already received more than
1200 submissions, which would be taken into consideration.

However, residents are calling for an immediate moratorium on the laws
until the review has finished and are planning a protest outside the
Premier Mike Baird's office on November 24.

Coal seam gas projects would be considered for Sydney's sensitive
drinking water catchments and landholders will have no legal right to
refuse drilling on their land under a state government plan for the
controversial industry.

The government hopes the announcement will defuse community angst over
coal seam gas mining ahead of the election next March. However voters
will not be told where coal seam gas mining is allowed until after the
election.

Announcing the plan on Thursday, NSW Nationals leader Troy Grant said
coal seam gas was the "most polarising" issue facing the government. The
plan would toughen regulation and take a more strategic and transparent
approach to releasing land for gas exploration, including better
science and data collection.

Resources and Energy Minister Anthony Roberts said the regime would secure the state's gas supplies and drive down prices.

There is a temporary ban on coal seam gas activity in Sydney's water
catchment buffer zones known as "special areas". However under the new
regime, coal seam gas operations anywhere in water catchments would be
considered.

The position is at odds with a 2009 promise by then opposition leader
Barry O'Farrell, who said a Liberal-National government would "ensure
that mining cannot occur in any water catchment area. No ifs, no buts. A
guarantee".

The government said it had adopted the 16 recommendations of NSW Chief
Scientist Mary O'Kane's landmark report into the industry, including
rigorous enforcement, improved communication and better compensation for
landholders and communities.

A new assessment framework will determine which areas are open for gas
exploration, considering economic, environmental and social factors. It
will not be in place until mid-2015.

Mr Grant said the government would only allow operations "where it is
safe and appropriate" and all national parks and urban areas will be
protected.

Coal seam gas operators Santos and AGL have agreed not to enter
properties to drill without landholder consent, but the deal is not
legally binding. The government's new plan does not enshrine a veto
right in legislation.

However, the government will require gas companies to negotiate land access arrangements and pay compensation to landholders.

The government will extinguish 16 pending petroleum licence applications
covering 43 per cent of the state, and continue a freeze on new licence
applications.

The Environment Protection Authority will assume responsibility for
enforcement and compliance. Existing coal seam gas projects, such as
those at Camden, Gloucester and the Pilliga, will not be subject to the
stricter rules.

The Greens and Labor both claimed the plan gave the green light to the
coal seam gas industry, and questioned the government's claim that
Professor O'Kane's recommendations had been fully implemented.

AGL welcomed the plan, saying it acknowledged the need to secure the
state's gas supplies. Santos warned the announcement must not slow
existing projects.

Protect Sydney's Water Alliance spokeswoman Isabel McIntosh said coal
seam gas mining can have unintended results, and the industry must be
permanently barred from water catchments.

This refers to an important peculiarity of the Australian electoral
system that non-Australians are unlikely to understand immediately:

THE Liberals will preference the Greens last in all lower house seats in
the upcoming Victorian election, Premier Denis Napthine says.

DR Napthine said the Greens were bad for the economy and bad for
Victoria. "The Greens will threaten the future of our strong
economy," he told reporters on Thursday. "They will destroy jobs
and put Victorian families at risk."

Dr Napthine was unclear on whether this would mean the Liberals would
preference the Greens higher than controversial parties such as Rise Up
Australia.

"We'll be putting the Greens last in lower house seats, and we'll be
reserving judgment in the upper house," he said. "In most cases,
we'll be putting the Greens last."

Victorians go to the polls on November 29.

Dr Napthine said it was not known who all the candidates are yet, and
when asked about Rise Up Australia, said: "We've got to see where
they've got candidates". "We will put the Greens last as a general
rule." "If there's extremist candidates we will consider putting
them below the Greens."

The Greens say they had already assumed they wouldn't get the
preferences. "The fact is many inner city Liberal voters ignore
the how-to-vote card and preference Green anyway," the party said.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

16 November, 2014

China Vows To Begin Aggressively Falsifying Air Pollution Numbers

The Onion has got it pretty right

BEIJING—Acknowledging the industrialized nation’s role in global climate
change, China reportedly reached a landmark agreement with the United
States Wednesday, pledging to significantly increase the rate at which
it falsifies air pollution data over the next 15 years.

“As the world’s leading manufacturer and a rising global economy, we
consider it our responsibility to begin taking aggressive measures to
fabricate pollution statistics and openly misinform the rest of the
world about our level of carbon emissions,” said Chinese president Xi
Jinping during a joint press conference with U.S. president Barack
Obama, noting that, while China has already taken steps to misrepresent
its air quality, it will steadily expand its current deception and begin
distorting data in a variety of new sectors, such as grossly
overstating its level of investment in solar, wind, and other renewable
energy sources.

“China is strongly committed to the goal of claiming its greenhouse gas
output has been cut in half by 2030. We will work tirelessly to
exaggerate, manipulate, and in many cases flat-out lie about the amount
of pollutants Chinese factories and energy plants release into the
atmosphere. That is our unwavering pledge.”

At press time, Chinese officials announced that the country had already met its goal.

The Inconvenient Truth About the U.S.-China Emissions Deal: It’s Meaningless

It's a desperate grasp for relevance from a Lame Duck president

On Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi
Jinping issued a “joint announcement on climate change” in which each
country made pledges about how they intend to handle future emissions of
their greenhouse gases. The announcement was hailed by most
environmental groups and much of the media as “historic,” a
“breakthrough, and a “game-changer.” Careful parsing of the text’s
diplomatic jargon suggests that the joint announcement is, in fact, none
of those.

To understand the nebulous nature of the announcement, don’t focus first
on the promised trajectories of future greenhouse gas emissions by both
countries. Instead consider the loopholes. For example, this bit of
climate change diplomatic arcana in which the two countries promise to
work together “to adopt a protocol, another legal instrument or an
agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all
Parties at the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris in 2015.”

That convoluted phraseology was hammered out at as a compromise at the
2011 Durban climate conference. The European Union was strongly
insisting that the U.N. climate conferees commit to “a protocol or other
legal instrument” as the ultimate goal for a comprehensive global
treaty in 2015. Why? Because that exact language had earlier propelled
the agreement to the Kyoto Protocol that established the only legally
binding emissions reduction targets on any countries.

China and India, however, objected and sought to water down the language
by including “or an agreed outcome with legal force.” The Chinese and
Indians evidently believe that that phraseology suggests whatever
climate negotiations do achieve by 2015, the result will be that they
still will have fewer obligations to reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions than will rich developing countries.

But what about the phrase, “applicable to all Parties?” At Durban, the
United States insisted that in any future climate agreement “legal
parity” must apply to big emerging economies like China, India, and
Brazil. That means that they would be bound to cut their emissions in
the same way that industrialized countries are. If the China, India, and
Brazil will not accept legally binding targets, then neither would the
United States.

The joint announcement, most likely at the insistence of China, also
reaffirmed “the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities
and respective capabilities, in light of different national
circumstances” enshrined in the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change. China has consistently interpreted that principle as
meaning that countries that were rich and developed in 1992 when the
Convention was adopted are obligated to cut their emissions, while
countries that were then poor are not.

What about the actual emissions pledges? The joint announcement states
that the United States intends to achieve an economy-wide target of
reducing its emissions by 26%-28% below its 2005 level in 2025 and to
make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%. Additionally, China
intends to achieve the peaking of CO2 emissions around 2030 and to make
best efforts to peak early and intends to increase the share of
non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20% by 2030.
The crucial word here is “intends.” It is clear that the announcement is
not meant to create any new obligations.

While China declared that its carbon dioxide emission (not greenhouse
gases) will peak by 2030, the announcement said nothing about the level
at which they will peak. So at what level might China’s emissions peak?
Assuming the recent 3% annual increase in China’s carbon dioxide
continues for the next 16 years, emissions would reach 16 gigatons by
2030.

In 2005, the U.S. emitted the equivalent of 7.26 gigatons of carbon
dioxide. So cutting emissions by 28% by 2025 implies emissions of 5.23
gigatons in 2025, which is about the amount that the U.S. emitted in
1992. Assuming that Chinese emissions did peak in 2030, the country
could by then be emitting three times more than the U.S.

Looking at the previously announced energy and climate policies of both
the U.S. and China, the new pledges appear to add little to their
existing plans to reduce their emissions. The new Obama pledges
basically track the reductions that would result from the
administration’s plan to boost automobile fuel economy standards to 54.5
miles per gallon by 2025 and the Environmental Protection Agency’s new
scheme to cut by 2030 the carbon dioxide emissions from electric power
plants by 30% below their 2005 level.

Xi was no doubt aware that a week earlier an analysis of demographic,
urbanization, and industrial trends by Chinese Academy of Social Science
had predicted that China’s emissions peak would occur between 2025 and
2040.

Supporters hope that the joint announcement is the prelude to a “great
leap forward” to a broad and binding global climate change agreement at
Paris in 2015. Perhaps, but the U.S. and China left themselves plenty of
room to step back if their pledges become inconvenient.

Who would have guessed that the November 4 election results would break
the logjam on an issue that pits North American energy independence and
radical environmentalists determined to stop the use of fossil fuels?

Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana did not lose on election day, but she
also did not win. Due to Louisiana’s unique jungle election
system, the state has a run-off on December 6 that will determine
whether Landrieu maintains her seat.

While most political pundits are predicting Landrieu’s political demise,
Senate Democrats are desperate to retain the seat. They are so
desperate that they plan to bring up a vote on the Senate floor on
legislation directing that the Keystone XL pipeline be completed.

Why Keystone?

Louisiana is an energy producing state, and the pipeline from Canada has
come to symbolize the Obama Administration’s war on energy.
Landrieu’s entire campaign has revolved around her supposed clout as
Chairman of the key Committee handling energy issues. The
multi-year failure of the Obama Administration to approve what was
initially seen as a simple request, and Landrieu’s inability to have any
influence over that decision has decimated the legitimacy of Landrieu’s
claim to power.

Now, with her career on the line, Senate Democrats are attempting to restore her illusion of influence.

Countering the Senate action, House Republicans are moving forward with
legislation sponsored by Cassidy that will authorize the project.

After years of Obama Administration delays, it now appears that the
project’s approval will be on the President’s desk before Thanksgiving.

The only question that will remain is whether Obama values Landrieu’s
place in the Senate more than he values his place at Al Gore’s table.

Senate Democrats should watch Obama’s actions warily. Nothing
could be more dangerous for an elected Member of Congress than a lame
duck President who proves that he doesn’t care about their political
needs while he recklessly seeks a legacy based upon Executive Orders and
Constitutional disregard.

Should Obama veto the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline it will send
an unmistakable notice to every sitting Democrat that they should trust
and follow Obama over the next two years at their own risk.

It may just turn out that Mary Landrieu becomes the poster Senator for
the dangers of getting to close to the self-absorbed Obama presidency.

The fact that oilwells these days go as far a 7 miles down shows that
oil is not a fossil fuel. 7 miles is way below levels at which
fossils are found

Last week new NASA photographs proved methane lakes exist on Saturn's
moon, Titan, showing that such hydrocarbons (or so-called 'fossil
fuels') are seemingly plentiful in our solar system. Cassini passes
Saturn This startling discovery turns on its head the long-held western
belief that petroleum is a limited resource, because it is primarily
derived (we had been told) from the fossilized remains of dead dinosaurs
and rotted carbon-based vegetation.

But with that notion now exploded in the article 'NASA Finds Lakes of
Hydrocarbons on Saturn's Moon, Titan' thanks to NASA’s Cassini
spacecraft, energy scientists are now compelled to admit that petroleum
oil is, in fact, substantially mineral in origin and occuring all
through the galaxies.

Two Years ago it was reported that the Max Planck Institute, Germany
have discovered that the Horse Head Nebula galaxy in the Orion
constellation contains a vast field of hydrocarbon (see 'Top German
Scientists Discover 'Fossil Fuel' in the Stars').

As such, long-held fears about Earth's shrinking 'fossil fuel' reserves
may be bogus. These important new cosmological discoveries come
coincidentally at a time when huge succeses in American oil drilling
technology ('frakking') are bringing a glut of oil onto the energy
markets, causing a slide in global oil prices. Fresh oil reserves are
being struck all over - some miles beneath the oceans, where Dino the
dinosaur never roamed.

As we reported (November 08, 2014) NASA's new evidence supports
previously controversial Russian claims that ‘fossil’ fuel theory is
junk science. No wonder skepticism of the wide-ranging Green
Agenda grows and serious doubts are rising as to whether humans need to
divest themselves of the supposedly fast-diminishing energy source after
all.

Bodies of credible, independent western scientists, collaborating and
collating their findings via the internet through fledgling
organisations such as Principia Scientific International are calling for
a re-assessment of over 2,000 eastern European peer-reviewed science
papers on the issue, previously ignored by western governments,
state-funded universities and the mainstream media.

For decades Russian scientists have known that the fossil fuel theory is
bogus and have compellingly demonstrated that petroleum is derived from
highly compressed mineral deposits deep beneath the surface. But the
most startling consequence to these findings is that oil is a constant
renewable regenerating in nature.

Since the Middle East oil crisis of the 1970’s gasoline suppliers have
stoked media fears that our planet’s reserves are fast in decline. The
term ‘peak oil’ was coined and we were told ‘fossil fuels’ would have to
become increasingly more expensive as our insatiable appetite drank
this ‘finite’ liquid energy source dry. Are we talking conspiracy theory
or well-intentioned, but misguided group think that limits to our
industrial expansion were essential if we were to tackle 'peak oil' and
fears over man-made global warming (which has been stalled for a
generation).

Let's be in no doubt, the emergence of group think about our 'carbon
footprint' (dare we call it, propaganda) suited the long-term interests
of the oil industry and western governments. 'Big Oil' has benefited
from being told by academics that their resource was precious and
limited (putting upward pressure on prices). Tax-raising governments are
being increasingly taken to task for encouraging (through generous
research grants) sympathetic academics to get on board to build a
consensus on these inter-related but evidentially weak scientific
theories.

Repositioning Theory as Fact

For decades the terms ‘peak oil’ and ‘fossil fuels’ have been
synonymous. They imply we are inexorably faced with diminishing natural
resources and the days of cheap carbon-based energy are gone. Supplanted
in the public consciousness as real we grew to accept the inevitable
coming of ever-higher energy prices as a consequence of our
energy-reliant, consumer lifestyle.

Journalists gleaned their own ‘evidence’ for such an apocalyptic
narrative from bleak books such as James Howard Kunstler’s ‘The Long
Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other
Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century’ and Richard
Heinberg’s ‘The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial
Societies’ among others and the public were sold on the fears.

As a consequence, in 2005, Congressional Representative Roscoe G.
Bartlett, Republican of Maryland, and Senator Tom Udall, a New Mexico
Democrat created the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus and at a stroke
turned attention to debunking such 'limits to growth' fallacies.

Scientists who dissented from the (peer-reviewed) groupspeak were
vilified or ignored. In the 1980’s distinguished British scientist, Sir
Fred Hoyle FRS was one who tried and failed to expose the chicanery of
proponents of the fossil fuel theory and diminishing world oil reserves.
Hoyle, without the benefit of the worldwide web tried repeatedly to
expose this flimflam,

"The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some
transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the
silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of
persons over an extended period of time."

The English professor valiantly argued that oil is abiogenic (i.e. from
mineral deposition) and cannot be a biotic (from fossils). Yet despite
his eminent stature Hoyle’s sage insight gained him no media platform.

Along with Hoyle other western scientists refused to toe the politically
correct line as evidenced in an increasing number of articles to
redress the balance about petroleum economics. While several papers by
Professor Michael C. Lynch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
also exposed the myth of "oil exhaustion" and demonstrating the
high-pressure genesis of petroleum. No media voice for them either.

Russia Becomes World Energy Superpower

Only in Russia, a nation that since the 1990's and fall of the Berlin
Wall, has eschewed military supremacy to become a global economic
superpower, did Hoyle’s and Lynch’s words find a welcome community of
likeminded scientists. Indeed, outside of the English-speaking world
there is no controversy and its common parlance that oil is a mineral,
not a biological product and as such our planet has endless untapped
reserves.

As a consequence of applying this knowledge Russia has gone from
strength to strength astutely capitalising on its ‘liquid gold’
reserves. "I would describe the mindset right now among the Russian
political elite as infused with 'petroconfidence',” So says Cliff
Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, in an interview with the BBC.

Indeed, between 1951-2001, thousands of articles and many books and
monographs were published mainly in the mainstream Russian scientific
journals proving abiotic petroleum origins - all ignored by western
governments and media. For example, leading expert V. A. Krayushkin has
alone published more than two hundred fifty articles on modern petroleum
geology, and several books.

Russian mineralogists, oil explorers and each successive government
since the dark days of the former Soviet Union have been unalterably
upbeat that they’ve ousted the ‘peak oil, fossil fuels’ nonsense. And
who are we to argue - they’ve got the money in the bank to prove it.

As a result Russia is firmly ensconced as the world's second-largest oil
exporter and is becoming so preeminent in the field of oil and gas
exploration and innovation that the nation is set to usurp the U.S. not
as a military force, but as the world’s energy superpower for the 21st
century.

Oil – Our Greatest Natural Renewable Energy Source

Exploiting their cutting-edge technology Russia has successfully
discovered numerous petroleum fields, a number of which produce either
partly or entirely from a crystalline basement and which appears
distinctly self-replenishing. Yes, you read that right – Russia enjoys
the best naturally renewable energy source – petroleum! No billions
wasted on wind farms, solar or wave white elephants here.

Indeed, to our former soviet cousins, the idea of ‘peak oil’ is
laughable because, if they’re calculations are right, oil is the most
bountiful, most efficient and cheapest renewable fuel and will last at
least for many hundreds of years to come.

Disgruntled that the Russians have been allowed to take such a big lead
the brightest and the best in the west are now using the blogosphere in
helping to forge resurgence against the fossil fuel, peak oil myth. So
says Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Prize: The
Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power” and chairman of IHS Cambridge
Energy Research Associates, a company that advises governments and
industry.

Yergin like others cites the compelling evidence that the MSM won’t show
you; these anti-fossil fuel theorists cite alkanes, kerogens and many
other petroleum related chemicals that have been found on meteorites –
which we know can support no organic life and thus proving the lie of
the fossil fuel theory.

Why are We Still Being Lied to?

Indeed, so lame has the fossil fuel theory become that even its most
strident supporters are unable to muster the flimsiest of evidence for
their position. In "The Abiotic Oil Controversy" key proponent of the
abiotic (fossil) origin, Richard Heinberg admits his case is exposed as
threadbare lamenting,

"Perhaps one day there will be general agreement that at least some oil
is indeed abiotic. Maybe there are indeed deep methane belts twenty
miles below the Earth’s surface.”

So scant is the evidence to support Heinberg and other western
pro-fossil fuel theorists that in researching his article ‘The Evidence
for Limitless Oil and Gas’ (Digital Journal), Bill Jencks reveals,

“I searched the internet including Google Scholar and there seems to be
no 'absolute proof' or support from direct modern research for the
Biogenic Theory of oil and gas formation. This theory -- for want of a
better word -- seems to be greatly 'assumed' by geologists throughout
geological research.”

Like me, Jencks found a mountain of evidence backing Russian claims.
From the Joint Institute of the Physics of the Earth Russian Academy of
Sciences, Moscow we find incredible sources as revealed by A
Dissertation by J.F. Kenney which condemns the outmoded 18th century
“anarchaic hypothesis” that petroleum somehow (miraculously) evolved
from biological detritus, and is accordingly limited in abundance.

Instead, the fossil fuels hypothesis has been replaced during the past
forty years by the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic
petroleum origins which has established that petroleum is a primordial
material erupted from great depth. Kenney states,

“Therefore, petroleum abundances are limited by little more than the
quantities of its constituents as were incorporated into the Earth at
the time of its formation; and its availability depends upon
technological development and exploration competence."

In a straight scientific shootout Peak Oil Theory vs Russian-Ukraine
Modern Theory the Russians win hands down. But it remains a peculiar
anachronism that there is no body of American or other English language
peer review to verify or disprove the Russian science.

But why are we still being lied to? With such unwillingness to correct
these intellectual failings it is little wonder that there is growing
dissatisfaction among voters and thinkers in English-speaking nations
and the EU. Those who study carefully the facts now reasonably conclude
that beyond the media hard sell there is no energy crisis; the world has
a plentiful supply of cheap renewable petroleum and another enviro-myth
needs to be mercilessly culled.

Richard Feynman was a theoretical physicist who shared in the 1965 Nobel
prize for his mathematical formulations relating to sub-atomic particle
interactions. He was for awhile a professor at Cornell; was offered a
professorship at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies, where
Einstein was a member of the faculty; but instead chose to take a
position at sunny Caltech, where he was to do his greatest work. Perhaps
you recall the stir Feynman caused when, as a member of the Roger
Commission investigating the 1986 Challenger disaster, he performed his
on-camera experiment demonstrating the fragility of the booster o-ring
material at and below freezing temperatures. All he needed was a glass
of ice water and a sample of the ring material to illustrate the folly
of having launched the shuttle in sub-freezing temperatures – against
the advice of engineers, by the way. Feynman died in 1988.

“Cargo cult science” is a term coined by Feynman in conjunction with his
commencement address to the Caltech graduating class of 1974. His
personal investigations into a number of popular paranormal fads, along
with his considerations regarding “modern” theories of education and of
criminal rehabilitation, led him to the following conclusion:

"So we really ought to look into theories that don’t work, and science that isn’t science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I
mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science.
In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they
saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing
to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put
fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to
sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of
bamboo sticking out like antennas — he’s the controller — and they wait
for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is
perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work.
No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because
they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific
investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the
planes don’t land."

He goes on to explain wherein the problem lies:

"… But there is one feature I notice that is
generally missing in cargo cult science… It’s a kind of scientific
integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind
of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if
you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think
might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it: other
causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought
of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked
— to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated."

I can only imagine what he might have to say about Al Gore and his
“scientific consensus” regarding “global warming,” now recast as
“climate change” since there seems to have been a pause in the “warming”
bit. Today’s politics, and its deliberate misuse of “science” and “new
studies,” seem to not permit, let alone reward, any sort of “utter
honesty” or “leaning over backwards” when legislating law, administering
policy, reporting the news, or while truth searching at university.
Certainty is the watchword. Doubt verboten.

One seemingly unanswerable question is how much of this nonsense is
really cargo-cultism, that is, ignorance, and how much is obfuscation or
deliberate deception? Are the political, educational and punditry high
priests and priestesses true believers? Or do they just perpetuate the
myths to perpetuate themselves? Is there a way to tell? To distinguish
between the cultists and those who are not? Would it make any difference
if we could? Questions, I suppose, without answers.

Feynman may provide a bit of one possible answer when he cautions:

"… Nature’s phenomena will agree or they’ll disagree
with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and
excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you
haven’t tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it’s this
type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is
missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult
science."

When it comes to cargo cult politics, such prudence seems in short supply. Fooling oneself is more likely par for this course.

The American electorate seems to have fashioned itself into two large
political cargo cults. We have the forms – elections, representatives,
courts – the appurtenances of democracy. But judging from the current
economic chaos and its concomitant middle class angst, the dismay of
conservatives, as well as what seems a perpetual leftist hostile rant,
all we seem capable of is fashioning more form. More law, more
regulation, more studies, more Congressional testimony… more, more,
more. Is it time for less? Is it time to stop being fooled? Whether by
ourselves or our cargo cult leaders? Who, in turn, may very well
themselves be fooled?

Feynman concluded:

"So I have just one wish for you — the good luck to
be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have
described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your
position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose
your integrity. May you have that freedom."

Do you? Do I? I certainly hope so. But I try not to fool myself and thus do I wonder.

If you ever get asked the vague but morally-charged question “Do you
believe in climate change?” someone is trying to put something over on
you.

Climate change is a constant of nature and everyone agrees that fossil
fuels have some impact on our naturally variable, volatile, and often
vicious climate.

The question is whether it will have a catastrophic impact—one so bad it
justifies restricting the only practical way to get energy in the
foreseeable future to the 3 billion people who have next to none of it:
fossil fuels. (No country relies on the sun and wind for energy, but
rich countries can afford to pay tens or hundreds of billions to install
and accommodate allegedly virtuous wind turbines and solar panels on
their grids.)

The real issue is climate catastrophe. I’m not a climate-change skeptic.
I’m a climate catastrophe skeptic—and there’s one graph that shows why
you should be, too.

No, it’s not showing temperatures have gone up half a degree in the 80
years we’ve used a lot of fossil fuels, which is barely more than they
went up the prior 80 years. Nor does it show temperatures have flattened
in the past eighteen years—while the world’s leading climate
catastrophists predicted dramatic, accelerating, runaway warming. Dr.
James Hansen predicted that temperatures would increase between
two-and-a-half and five degrees in 20 years!

There is no intrinsically perfect global temperature and, if there
was, we would expect it to be warmer. Until it became politically
correct for temperature trends to warm, people around the world prayed
for far more warming than we’ve experienced. There is no time in human
history when it has been considered “too warm” for human beings.

What matters is: is the climate becoming more or less livable? The key
statistic here, one that is unfortunately almost never mentioned, is
“climate-related deaths.”

The best source I have found for this data is the U.S. Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance and Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of
Disasters International Disaster Database (OFDA/CRED EM-DAT), based in
Brussels. It gathers data about disasters since 1900.

To make matters better, in reality the trend is even more dramatically
downward, as before the 1970s many disasters went unreported. One big
reason for this was lack of satellite data—we can now see the whole
world, enabling us to track icecaps and disaster areas with relative
ease. In 1950, if there was a disaster in the middle of what is now
Bangladesh, would information have been accurately collected? In
general, we can expect in more recent years, more deaths were recorded
and in earlier years, fewer deaths were recorded. For some countries
there is simply no good data, because in underdeveloped places like
Haiti or Ethiopia we do not even know exactly how many people lived in a
particular place before a disaster struck. Today we have much better
information—and because disaster statistics are tied to aid, there is
incentive to overreport.

And the more we dig into the data, the stronger the correlations get.

Here are a couple of striking numbers from the data: in the decade from
2004 to 2013, worldwide climate-related deaths (including droughts,
floods, extreme temperatures, wildfires, and storms) plummeted to a
level 88.6 percent below that of the peak decade, 1930 to 1939.2 The
year 2013, with 29,404 reported deaths, had 99.4 percent fewer
climate-related deaths than the historic record year of 1932, which had
5,073,283 reported deaths for the same category.3

That reduction occurred despite more complete reporting, an incentive to
declare greater damage to gain more aid, and a massively growing
population, particularly in vulnerable places like coastal areas, in
recent times.

The climate catastrophists don’t want you to know this because it
reveals how fundamentally flawed their viewpoint is. They treat the
global climate system as a stable and safe place we make volatile and
dangerous. In fact, the global climate system is naturally volatile and
dangerous—we make it livable through development and
technology—development and technology powered by the only form of cheap,
reliable, scalable reliable energy that can make climate livable for 7
billion people.

As the climate-related death data show, there are some major
benefits—namely, the power of fossil-fueled machines to build a durable
civilization highly resilient to extreme heat, extreme cold, floods,
storms, and so on. Why weren’t those mentioned in the discussion when we
talked about storms like Sandy and Irene, even though anyone going
through those storms was far more protected from them than he or she
would have been a century ago?

I have debated representatives of the three leading environmental
organizations in the world—Greenpeace, Sierra Club and 350.org—including
350.org’s Bill McKibben, the leading environmentalist in the world
today—and every time, I have repeatedly mentioned the climate livability
statistics. I raised it to Bill McKibben before I debated him and half a
dozen times during my debate with him—he didn’t acknowledge it. He just
called it “one number.” Yeah, one number, based on billions of
empirical observations, that destroys billions of dollars worth of
speculation.

Why? Because the dogma that man is ruining the planet rather than
improving it is a religion, a source of prestige, and a career for too
many people. But for the rest of us, the statistic climate
catastrophists don’t want us to know is very, very good news.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

14 November, 2014

Western diets must be abandoned for vegetarianism or greenhouse gases will rise by 80%, experts warn

The medical journals are full of findings that red meat is bad for
you. Yet never before have Americans eaten more of it and never
before have Americans lived so long. So what gives?

Before
I answer that, let me mention another fact: Australians are
big meat eaters too and yet the life expectancy of Australians is up
there along with Japan and the Scandinavian countries. In some
reckonings, the Australian life expectancy is the longest of any
national population. And what is behind that statistic?
Nonagenarians. There are an incredible number of people aged over
90 tottering around in Australia. Most families include or have
recently included one among their close relatives.

So what
food did those nonagenerians grow up on? They grew up on a
traditional British diet and still mostly eat that to this day. It
sounds (and was) unbelievably boring but every night they would sit
down to fried meat of some sort, often steak. And it would be
fried in dripping -- i.e. beef fat -- and accompanied by boiled
vegetables. Lifespan is the ultimate test of any diet so plenty of
beef and fat therefore stands thoroughly vindicated as a healthy diet.

So
what are the medical journals blathering about? The studies they
rely on are epidemiological. They report correlations of uncertain
meaning -- so the authors simply leap on the interpretation
that they like -- without proof. I know of no double blind
controlled study which shows significant ill-effects on lifespan from
eating red meat. Ancel Keys was the first to claim ill effects and
his studies were very broadly epidemiological indeed.

So why do
many medical researchers want to find that red meat is bad for
you? Elitism, Hubris. They know they are smart and are
sufficiently weak in character that they want to announce that far and
wide. The humility preached by Jesus in Matthew chapter 6 is not for
them. And one way they can announce their superiority is by
mocking and scorning anything that is popular. And red meat is
VERY popular.

And the Green/Left too are elitists. They
think they are so superior that they can and should tell the rest of us
what to do and are prepared to use force to bring that about wherever
they can.

So the article below is just another superiority claim

One
notes that they have also slipped into their story one of the scarcity
warnings that they so love. According to the Green/Left, there is
always something that we are in danger of running out of. Their claim
that in future we may not have enough food for everyone is as old
as Thomas Malthus and Adolf Hitler's Lebensraum

The fact
of course is that the whole trend in agricultural and other primary
production has been towards greater abundance, even food
surpluses, which is why food has never been as cheap as it is now.
The Green/Left prefer theory to facts

A love of meat and sugary treats could be damaging the planet, as well as your health.

By 2050, experts predict that these so-called western diets, which are
typically high in fats and oils, will cause greenhouse gas emissions to
increase by 80 per cent.

If left unchecked, this could also lead to an extra billion hectares of
habitat being destroyed to make way for the extra land needed for food
production and agriculture.

‘Rising incomes and urbanisation are driving a global dietary transition
in which traditional diets are replaced by diets higher in refined
sugars, refined fats, oils and meats,’ explained ecologists Professor
David Tilman and graduate student Matthew Clark from the University of
Minnesota.

‘By 2050, these dietary trends will be a major contributor to an
estimated 80 per cent increase in global agricultural greenhouse gas
emissions from food production and to global land clearing.’

The researchers said these dietary shifts are also greatly increasing
the number of cases of Type II diabetes, coronary heart disease and
other chronic diseases that lower global life expectancies.

Their study, published in the journal Nature, analysed data on
environmental costs of food production, diet trends, relationships
between diet and health and population growth.

Between 1961 and 2009, the pair discovered that consumption of meat and calories per person rose in tandem with income.

Combining this with forecasts of population and income growth for the
coming decades, the researchers showed diets in 2050 would contain fewer
servings of fruits and vegetables, but 25 to 50 percent more pork,
poultry, beef, dairy and eggs.

The study also used a computer model to see how changing from an
omnivore diet to a typical Mediterranean, pescatarian or vegetarian
alternative could make a difference.

Their {model] results show that these alternatives have the potential to
reduce incidences of Type II diabetes by, on average, 27 per cent,
cancer by about 10 per cent and heart disease deaths by about 20 per
cent.

‘In particular, if the world were to adopt variations on three common
diets health would be greatly increased at the same time global
greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by an amount equal to the current
greenhouse gas emissions of all cars, trucks, plans trains and ships.

‘This dietary shift would prevent the destruction of an area of tropical
forests and savannas as large as half of the United States.’

The results back up the findings of a previous study from the University
of Cambridge and University of Aberdeen that said eating less meat is
'essential' to ensure future demand for food can be met and 'dangerous'
climate change avoided.

The study found food production alone could exceed targets for greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 if current trends continue.

Population growth and the global shift towards 'meat-heavy Western
diets' has meant increasing agricultural yields will not meet projected
food demands for an expected 9.6 billion world population in 30 years,
according to the researchers

Host of G20 meeting in Australia says jobs and growth, not climate, top of the agenda

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has insisted jobs and economic growth, not
"what might happen in 16 years' time" on climate change will be front
and centre at the G20 summit in Brisbane, even as senior US officials
said climate change was an issue for the global economy.

In an extraordinary statement, Mr Abbott, who last month said "coal is
good for humanity" and would remain an "essential part of our economic
future" in Australia and right around the world, argued "for Australia,
I'm focusing not on what might happen in 16 years' time, I'm focusing on
what we're doing now and we're not talking, we're acting" despite the
long-ranging superpowers' climate deal.

In Washington, US State Department senior spokeswoman Jen Psaki said
that at the G20 meeting "there will be a focus on economic issues and
how we are co-ordinating with the global economy. Climate in our view is
part of that".

In Beijing, analysts told Fairfax Media China was unlikely to push as
hard as the US appeared to be doing to put climate talks on the G20
agenda.

The Prime Minister's comments came after the United States and China
announced a deal that will see the US target an emissions cut of 26 to
28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025 and as China pledged to cap
growing carbon emissions by 2030.

The federal government's Direct Action policy, in contrast, mandates a 5
per cent cut in emissions by 2020 against 2000 levels, a target Mr
Abbott said he was confident Australia would hit.

While Mr Abbott and his most senior ministers, including Joe Hockey and
Julie Bishop, welcomed the US-China deal on Thursday, they hosed
down its immediate impact on Australia's post-2020 emissions reduction
target, which is due to ne set in the first half of 2015.

Mr Abbott has resisted attempts to make climate change a high priority
agenda item for the G20 summit of world leaders and Mr Hockey said
climate change would only be "part of the agenda" while accusing
companies who do not pay tax where they earn profits of committing
"theft".

Mr Abbott said the US and China were the "two most significant countries
and they're obviously the two biggest emitters" but said that at the
APEC Beijing conference "climate change was hardly mentioned".

Forthcoming climate conferences in Lima and Paris would focus on the
environment and he expected at the G20 "if other countries want to raise
other subjects they're entirely welcome to do so but my focus, and I
believe the principal focus, of the conference will be on growth and
jobs".

In Washington, Ms Psaki said the US hoped the China climate deal would
provide momentum for further international action and "I am certain in
bilateral meetings the issue of climate, as we look to the Paris
negotiations a year from now, will be a part of the agenda" at the G20.

The joint US-China announcement is seen as deft diplomacy by Chinese
President Xi Jinping, with the deal seen as symbolically important, as
China's economy has already begun shifting away from dirty coal and its
2030 target is not seen as overly ambitious.

Wang Tao, a Beijing-based climate change expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua
Centre for Global Policy, said the joint announcement was a "clear
signal" that would have leverage and implications on potential
negotiations around climate change at the G20.

"It's regrettable that Australia's scrapped the carbon tax and it's
actually moving on the other direction from everyone else in the climate
change negotiations," Dr Wang said.

After last week’s GOP election wave, Barack Obama is desperate to prove
he’s still relevant. And when a narcissist gets desperate, well, look
out. The president is set to issue a series of sweeping executive orders
over the next few weeks, all meant to address allegedly man-made global
warming – as some parts of the U.S. see record cold and snow fall.

Politico reports, “The coming rollout includes a Dec. 1 proposal by EPA
to tighten limits on smog-causing ozone, which business groups say could
be the costliest federal regulation of all time; a final rule Dec. 19
for clamping down on disposal of power plants' toxic coal ash; the Jan. 1
start date for a long-debated rule prohibiting states from polluting
the air of their downwind neighbors; and a Jan. 8 deadline for issuing a
final rule restricting greenhouse gas emissions from future power
plants.

That last rule is a centerpiece of Obama’s most ambitious environmental
effort, the big plan for combating climate change that he announced at
Georgetown University in June 2013.”

Congressional Republicans may have little recourse beyond a fight over
funding to stop the president, who is determined to crush the economy
and shred the Constitution on the way to enacting his climate agenda.

Proposed Water Rule Could Put ‘Property Rights of Every American Entirely at the Mercy’ of EPA

It seems incredible, but a single missing word could turn a water law
into a government land grab so horrendous even a U.S. Supreme Court
justice warned it would “put the property rights of every American
entirely at the mercy of Environmental Protection Agency employees.”

The missing word is “navigable.” The Obama administration is proposing a
rule titled “Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’ Under the
Clean Water Act,” which would strike “navigable” from American water law
and redefine any piece of land that is wet at least part of the year,
no matter how remote or isolated it may be from truly navigable waters,
as “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS.

The proposed rule would provide EPA and the Corps of Engineers (as well
as litigious environmental groups) with the power to dictate the
land-use decisions of homeowners, small businesses and local communities
throughout the United States. There would be virtually no limit to the
federal government’s authority over private property.

The proposed rule has ignited a firestorm of protest. Agricultural and
business interests, free-market think tanks, state agencies, attorneys
general and governors have joined the “Ditch the Rule” movement and
demanded it be withdrawn.

The Obama administration is conducting an aggressive shield campaign to
downplay the proposed rule’s huge negative impacts and paint critics as
opponents of clean water, shills for development interests or anything
other than concerned citizens.

Obama’s own political shills for anti-development interests, such as
Organizing for Action, Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Water
Action, are marching in lockstep with the agencies to discredit any
opposition to the rule.

But recently, a group of 25 U.S. senators called out the Obama
administration for misleading Americans on the proposed rule. In a
scathing letter to the EPA and the Corps, the senators detailed the
administration’s deceptions and bias:

EPA has attempted to delegitimize questions and concerns surrounding the proposed rule. Concerns are legitimate.
EPA and the Corps have blatantly misrepresented the impacts of increased Clean Water Act jurisdiction. The impacts are real.
EPA’s social media advocacy in favor of the proposed “Waters of the
United States” rule prejudices the rulemaking process. It kills debate.

Affected parties are more credible in this battle than the
administration. The American Farm Bureau started the “Ditch the Rule”
movement with pictures that showed what the EPA and Army Corps of
Engineers would regulate if the Waters of the United States rule takes
effect: “wetlands” that are nothing more than low spots on a farm field,
the decorative pond of a suburban home or even a vacant lot that the
agency designates as possessing the requisite wetness.

If the farmer fills in low spots or the homeowner builds a child’s
playhouse by the pond, or a business constructs a new office on the
vacant lot or anyone touches any bureaucrat-designated “wetland” in any
way, the EPA or Corps may order the owners to cease activity, restore
original conditions and abandon any use of the property.

If the owners do not comply, they could be fined up to $75,000 per
day—$37,500 for violating the rule and another $37,500 for violating the
agency’s order. The property owner is blocked from going to court until
sued by the agency, which could dawdle until fines have skyrocketed
into the millions.

That’s no exaggeration.

It’s from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s concurring decision in
the 2012 case of Michael and Chantell Sackett, an Idaho couple who
placed fill material on their property to build their dream home and
suffered exactly the outrageous treatment the justice described.

After failing in lower courts, the Sacketts finally won a Supreme Court
ruling that they had the right to sue the EPA for exceeding the reach of
the Clean Water Act. At least three other Supreme Court rulings have
rejected parts of the administration’s interpretation of the Clean Water
Act.

The Supreme Court trumps the president of the United States, and in this
instance shares the concerns of the “Senate 25.” But none of the high
court’s decisions answer the exact question: What is the reach of the
Clean Water Act?

Therein lies the crux of the WOTUS menace: The reach of the Clean Water
Act is notoriously unclear, and EPA and the Corps have kept it that way.

The Farm Bureau is particularly concerned by EPA’s refusal to answer
direct questions such as, “Name three things that get wet, like roadside
drainages, irrigation ditches, and livestock watering ponds, that would
not be regulated by WOTUS.” Dead silence. And a permit to do anything
in a designated “wetland” can cost upwards of $250,000.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses asserted in its
official comments to the EPA, “The CWA is unconstitutionally vague
because the regulated community cannot readily determine whether a given
property is, or is not, a jurisdictional wetland.” The uncertainty
helps the Obama shield campaign.

Two weeks before the Senate 25 called out the EPA, the attorneys general
of 11 states and the governors of six states sent a similar letter to
the EPA and the Corps.

“This rule should be withdrawn and replaced with a common-sense
alternative that respects states’ primary responsibility over lands and
waters within their borders while also giving land owners clear
guidance,” the letter stated.

Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general and a leader in drafting the
states’ letter, told The Daily Signal, “The proposed ‘WOTUS’ rule
unlawfully and unconstitutionally asserts federal control over local
water and land by needlessly replacing state and local land-use
management with top-down, federal control.”

“Unlawful” and “unconstitutional” are not words attorneys general use
lightly. When asked to size up the overall issue, Pruitt said, “The
WOTUS rule appears to be another attempt by federal agencies to
implement an agenda through regulations to affect land-use decisions
that should be left to the states and private property owners.”

In September, the House passed bipartisan legislation, H.R. 5078, that
prohibits the EPA and Corps from finalizing the WOTUS rule. A companion
bill is stalled in the Senate.

With the coal industry overpowered, Obama’s rogue administration looks to have declared war on the rest of us.

Background briefing for climate teachers: false prophets and false prophecies from the cult of CO2 alarmism

What with a Nobel Peace Prize shared between the IPCC and Al Gore, and
no end of awards presented by CO2 alarmists and their followers to one
another, the casual observer is at risk of concluding that wise and
distinguished people are leading the call for dramatic reductions in our
CO2 emissions. The reality is that buffoons and charlatans, confidence
tricksters and shallow opportunists, not to mention malevolent
sociopaths, are in this odious vanguard. Dramatic threats of imminent
doom, portentous language, terrifying imagery about what is going to
happen to us are their stock in trade. A journalist has picked up on
summaries of failed prophecies from such as the WUWT site, and in a
recent article at The New American he notes:

'Warnings have been issued for many decades now regarding catastrophic
climate change that forecasted certain trends or occurrences that we
should already have witnessed. Yet such predictions have turned out to
be very, very wrong. This was certainly the case with the alarmist
predictions of the 1960s and ’70s that man’s activities on Earth were
causing a catastrophic cooling trend that would bring on another ice
age. And it is also the case with the more recent claims about
catastrophic global warming. '

The examples he gives are listed below:

Global cooling – one of the eco-threats of the 1970s: FAIL (see the article for more details of each fail here and below)

Global warming – one of the eco-threats from the 1980s onwards: FAIL after FAIL after FAIL:

'In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warned that
imminent sea-level rises, increased hurricanes, and desertification
caused by “man-made global warming” would lead to massive population
disruptions. ' FAIL

'In its final 2007 report, widely considered the “gospel” of “settled”
climate “science,” the UN IPCC suggested that Himalayan glaciers could
melt by 2035 or sooner. ' FAIL

'Like the UN, the Pentagon commissioned a report on “climate change”
that also offered some highly alarming visions of the future under
“global warming.” The 2003 document, entitled “An Abrupt Climate Change
Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” ...

By now, according to the “not implausible” scaremongering outlined in
the report for a 10-year time period, the world should be a
post-apocalyptic disaster zone. Among other outlandish scenarios
envisioned in the report over the preceding decade: California flooded
with inland seas, parts of the Netherlands “unlivable,” polar ice all
but gone in the summers, and surging temperatures. Mass increases in
hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters were supposed to be
wreaking havoc across the globe, too. All of that would supposedly spark
resource wars and all sorts of other horrors.' FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL
FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL

'For well over a decade now, climate alarmists have been claiming that
snow would soon become a thing of the past. In March 2000, for example,
“senior research scientist” David Viner, working at the time for the
Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, told the
U.K. Independent that within “a few years,” snowfall would become “a
very rare and exciting event” in Britain. “Children just aren’t going to
know what snow is,” he was quoted as claiming in the article, headlined
“Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.” ' FAIL

'The IPCC has also been relentlessly hyping the snowless winter scare,
along with gullible or agenda-driven politicians. In its 2001 Third
Assessment Report, for example, the IPCC claimed “milder winter
temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms. ' FAIL

'In 1988, Hansen was asked by journalist and author Rob Reiss how the
“greenhouse effect’ would affect the neighborhood outside his window
within 20 years (by 2008). “The West Side Highway [which runs along the
Hudson River] will be under water,” Hansen claimed. “And there will be
tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the
same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will
change...There will be more police cars .... [since] you know what
happens to crime when the heat goes up.” In 1986, Hansen also predicted
in congressional testimony that the Earth would be some two degrees
warmer within 20 years. ' FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL

'Separately, another prominent alarmist, Princeton professor and lead UN
IPCC author Michael Oppenheimer, made some dramatic predictions in 1990
while working as “chief scientist” for the Environmental Defense Fund.
By 1995, he said then, the “greenhouse effect” would be “desolating the
heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing
crop failures and food riots.” By 1996, he added, the Platte River of
Nebraska “would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie
topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and
shut down computers.” The situation would get so bad that “Mexican
police will round up illegal American migrants surging into Mexico
seeking work as field hands.” ' FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL
FAIL

'Perhaps nowhere have the alarmists’ predictions been proven as wrong as
at the Earth’s poles. In 2007, 2008, and 2009, Al Gore, the high priest
for a movement described by critics as the “climate cult,’ publicly
warned that the North Pole would be “ice-free” in the summer by around
2013 because of alleged “man-made global warming.” ' FAIL

'Even more embarrassing for the warmists have been trends in the
Southern Hemisphere. Of course, all of the “climate models” and “climate
experts” and “scientists” predicted that rising CO2 emissions would
increase global temperatures, which would melt the ice in Antarctica -
by far the largest mass of frozen H2O on the planet. ' FAIL

'In his second-term inaugural address, Obama also made some climate
claims, saying: “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgement of
science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and
crippling drought and powerful storms.” Ironically, all three of the
examples he provided of what he called the “threat of climate change”
actually discredit his argument. ' FAIL FAIL FAIL

The article, by journalist Alex Newman, concludes

'Few people would make an important decision based on next week’s
weather forecast. When it comes to “climate,” though, the $360
billion-per-year climate establishment is telling humanity that
civilization must be reorganized from top to bottom based on failed
models purporting to make predictions decades and even centuries in
advance. Flawed predictions aside, a great deal of evidence suggests
accuracy or truth was never the intent — generating fear to seize more
money and power was (and is). Many top alarmists have admitted as much,
with some responding to the implosion of their theories with calls for
censorship or, more extreme still, the imprisonment, re-education, and
even execution of “climate deniers.” '

So, beware of what you are letting into your classroom should you be
tempted to bow to the establishment pressure to promote acute alarm over
our CO2 emissions. The case for alarm over these emissions is very weak
(See for example the recent NIPCC reports). On the other hand, the case
for alarm over those those who promote such alarm is very strong.

GLOBAL warming could be making parts of the world colder. Yes, you read that right. Here’s why this is not a crazy thing to say.

There’s a strong outbreak of cold weather across parts of the United
States this week. It’s similar in some ways to last year’s so-called
polar vortex — that conveyor belt of frigid Arctic air which parked
itself on top of large parts of the United States, bringing bitter cold
for days.

This week’s cold outbreak is much weaker, but it’s again making people question the widely accepted narrative of global warming.

The sceptic’s logic train is understandable: if it’s so damn cold, how can the world be warming?

Time magazine did a fair job of explaining all that earlier this year.
We paraphrase a little here, but here’s how their theory works in
regards to the polar vortex:

1. Sea ice is vanishing from the Arctic, which leaves behind dark open ocean water.

2. That water absorbs more of the heat from the sun than reflective ice.

3. Relatively warmer water is the main reason the Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the planet.

4. As the temperature difference between the polar north and more
temperate latitudes diminishes, a band of high-level strong winds called
the “jet stream” weakens.

5. For want of a more technical description, the jet stream kind of
holds all the weather systems in place. Most of the time it keeps the
cold stuff north and the warm stuff south.

6. But a weakened jet stream can develop what Time calls “kinks”. Time
reported that an unusually large kink in the jet stream was what allowed
all that Arctic air to flow much further south than normal during the
polar vortex.

Statistics show that most people tune out about halfway through most stories, so we thoug

Statistics show that most people tune out about halfway through most
stories, so we thought this penguin might encourage you to struggle all
the way through. Source: Supplied

So there’s your theory. It’s extremely cold a little more often as an
indirect result of the world getting warmer. Or as Dan Pydynowski,
senior meteorologist for AccuWeather told USA Today. “It’s a similar
pattern. The jet stream buckles and releases Arctic air from its
circulation over the North Pole. Here comes that cold air.”

Closer to home, there’s another example of how warming can produce
seemingly contradictory effects. Warmer temperatures are not only
causing more snowfall in Antarctica, scientists believe, but could also
be producing more sea ice.

The basic theory is that melting water from glaciers is slightly colder
than the seawater into which it flows. That means the ocean around the
continent is more likely to freeze.

The bottom line here is that a few cold outbreaks in the USA, no matter how severe, don’t mean the world isn’t warming.

The world definitely is warming, according to just about every reputable
science body, including our own Bureau of Meteorology, which says
Australia’s climate has warmed by 0.9°C since 1910, with more extreme
heat and fewer cool extremes.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

Hot
air. He can have all the targets he likes but he won't be around
long enough to do much about them. He can't control the future. Such
targets are a matter for Congress anyway and they would only stick with
bipartisan support -- which they won't get. He is just blowing
smoke

President Obama in Beijing on Wednesday declared
far-reaching new targets for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and
for the first time, China agreed to cut its emissions of carbon
dioxide and other gases blamed for climate change.

"This is an
ambitious goal, but it is an achievable goal," Obama said. "It will
double the pace at which we're reducing carbon pollution in the United
States. It puts us on a path to achieving the deep emissions reductions
by advanced economies that the scientific community says is necessary to
prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change."

Obama
said the new goal was to reduce domestic emissions in the U.S. by 26-28
percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. By contrast, Obama at a
climate conference in Copenhagen in late 2009 set a U.S. reduction goal
of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Chinese President Xi
Jinping announced that his country would aim for its greenhouse gas
emissions to peak by 2030, or earlier. Unlike Obama, he did not commit
to a specific reduction percentage target.

China has also agreed
to increase the proportion of energy it gets from non-fossil fuel
sources – such as solar, wind and nuclear – to about 20 percent by 2030,
according to the White House.

“Our
economy can’t take the president’s ideological war on coal that will
increase the squeeze on middle-class families and struggling miners,” he
said in a statement. “Easing the burden already created by EPA
regulations will continue to be a priority for me in the new Congress.”

Secretary
of State John Kerry, who has been ardently promoting climate change
cooperation between the world’s two biggest emitters, hailed the
agreement as a “breakthrough.”

In a New York Times op-ed, Kerry called the new U.S. targets “both ambitious and feasible.”

“It
roughly doubles the pace of carbon reductions in the period from 2020
to 2025 as compared to the period from 2005 to 2020,” he said, adding
that it puts the U.S. on track to reduce emissions by some 80 percent by
the middle of the century.

Kerry expressed hope that the U.S.
and Chinese announcements would encourage other countries, ahead of
climate negotiations resuming in Lima, Peru next month, and a major
climate conference in Paris, France in a year’s time that aims to
deliver a universal agreement on emission reduction for the post-2020
period.

“The commitment of both presidents to take ambitious
action in our own countries, and work closely to remove obstacles on the
road to Paris, sends an important signal that we must get this
agreement done, that we can get it done, and that we will get it done.”

Climate
activist and former Vice President Al Gore praised “President Obama’s
commitment to reduce US emissions despite legislative obstruction,” and
called the joint announcement “a major step forward in the global effort
to solve the climate crisis.”

“Much more will be required –
including a global agreement from all nations – but these actions
demonstrate a serious commitment by the top two global polluters,” Gore
said in a statement.

Sen.-elect
Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) pledged on “Fox News Sunday” to be
“extremely aggressive” in trying to rollback some regulations by the
Environmental Protection Agency.

“Extremely aggressive,” she said
when asked how aggressive she would be in the Senate in trying to
rollback some of the EPA regulations. “That is my promise to West
Virginia. We have lost over the last two years, 5,000 jobs. Those are
just coal jobs.

“We had several thousand other miners who are
what are called a warn notice, meaning they're potentially going to be
losing their jobs. That doesn't even count the transportation job, the
electricians, the tire distributors, all the other jobs that go with
coal mining,” Capito said. “Coal is our base load fuel.”

Capito, currently a U.S. congresswoman, became the first woman elected as West Virginia senator in last week’s midterm election.

She
said President Barack Obama’s policies are “disenfranchising” her part
of the country. “We've been picked as a loser. I'm not going to
stand for it. Rolling back the EPA regulations is the way to do it,” she
said.

Capito said it would be “really smart” for the president to back down on the Keystone pipeline.

“I
think he'd be really smart to do it when he sees a margin in the Senate
of over probably 65 votes. I would hope so. I mean, if we're looking at
jobs, if we're looking at infrastructure, we've got an energy growth in
our country that we really need to capitalize on,” she said.

The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed taking 72 hazardous
chemicals off of its approved list of inert ingredients allowed for use
in pesticides.

But the inclusion of argon (AR) - a naturally
occurring element and the third most abundant gas in the Earth’s
atmosphere - has left some people scratching their heads.

According
to the Gas Encyclopedia, “the name argon comes from the Greek argos,
meaning ‘the lazy one’” because it is so chemically stable. The element,
which was discovered in 1894, is “so unreactive” that it is primarily
used to provide “an inert atmosphere in which hot metals can be worked.”

This
“noble gas” is also used in auto air bags, fluorescent light bulbs, as
insulation in double-glazed windows, and for growing semiconductor
crystals.

In a May 22 letter to California Attorney General
Kamala Harris and representatives of two environmental groups denying
petitions they “submitted in 2006 identifying 371 pesticide inert
ingredients as hazardous,” EPA Assistant Administrator James Jones
assured them that “the agency would take appropriate action to address
risks from pesticide inert ingredients.”

EPA whittled their
original list down to 72 inert ingredients, including turpentine oil and
nitrous oxide, because none of them are currently being used in any
registered pesticides, according to the EPA.

“Once an inert
ingredient is removed from the list, any proposed future use of the
inert ingredient would need to be supported by data provided to and
reviewed by the EPA as part of a new inert ingredient submission
request,” the agency noted.

But because people breathe argon and
its atoms “do not combine with one another, nor have they been observed
to combine chemically with atoms of any other element,” a number of
public comments posted on EPA’s website expressed incredulity that argon
is on any hazardous list in the first place:

“I'm a professor of
chemistry at the University of Nebraska. Removal of argon, the
quintessential common inert gas, from the approved inert ingredients
list, is likely to result in ridicule for the EPA. Government science
agencies have a poor enough reputation already. Please don't make it
worse!”

“You should withdraw this entire proposal, and tell the
activists that you will consider their petition to be a sham and a
mockery of science, based on their inclusion of argon on the list.”

“I
was absolutely dumbfounded to see Argon (#48) on this list. Considering
that this noble gas is TOTALLY INERT and no compounds that can be
created with this element (only by using extraordinary effort in a lab
environment) can survive at room temperature, why on earth would it even
be on a list of banned substances?!! I think someone at the EPA must
have previously consumed too much of some banned substance -- as this
makes absolutely no sense!”

“The ridiculous inclusion of Argon, a
noble gas and the fourth largest component of Earth's atmosphere behind
Nitrogen, Oxygen and water, on this list, casts tremendous doubt on the
knowledge and expertise of the list's creators. It provides reason to
genuinely doubt the inclusion of any of the other 71 ingredients on the
list as well.”

“The burden of proof lies on those who want
ingredients removed. Ingredients should be removed only if there is
substantial evidence of their causing harm (certainly not the case with
Argon, which we all breathe in great quantities each and every day). To
remove ingredients first and require proof of non-harm (a null
hypothesis situation) in the future directly opposes the scientific
process upon which all of our knowledge of the world is built.”

“Banning
Argon? It's an inert gas. Think about it. This is beyond human
comprehension. What idiotic environmentalist came up with this idea?
Aren't you embarrassed?”

“Argon? C’mon, who's checking this stuff before you publish it?”

CNSNews.com
did not receive a reply to its request that an EPA spokeswoman explain
why it is proposing to ban argon from its list of approved pesticide
ingredients.

The agency will be accepting public comments on the proposed action until Nov. 21.

UK:
Fracking ‘will transform the North’: Minister reveals Government plans
for 'sovereign wealth fund' which will hold revenues from shale gas in
certain parts of the country

Fracking for shale gas could
prompt a gold rush that will turn northern towns like Blackpool into
British equivalents of oil-rich communities in the Middle East, a
Cabinet minister has claimed.

Business and energy minister
Matthew Hancock revealed that the Government is preparing to announce
plans for a ‘sovereign wealth fund’ to hold the revenues from fracking
for the north of England.

Such state-owned funds have been set up
in the Middle East and Norway to generate huge sums from the proceeds
of oil and gas exploration.

They invest in assets such as stocks,
property, infrastructure and precious metals, with proceeds able to
fund public spending. Chancellor George Osborne is expected to unveil
details of a fund in his autumn statement next month.

Mr Hancock
will also today announce the creation of a new National College for
Onshore Oil and Gas, based in Blackpool with offshoots in Chester,
Portsmouth, Redcar and Strathclyde.

It will train school leavers and graduates in fracking technology, enabling them to win lucrative jobs in the industry.

Ministers
believe fracking could herald an energy revolution that will boost the
economy, make Britain more self-sufficient and bring down sky-high bills
from greedy energy firms. The Treasury has offered generous tax breaks
to kickstart the technology.

Scientists say the UK is potentially
sitting on shale deposits filled with enough gas to supply the whole
country for at least 40 years – a discovery that could see a repeat of
the North Sea oil boom.

Shale gas development has taken off in
the US, using the controversial process of fracking, or hydraulic
fracturing. Gas deposits trapped underground are extracted by fracturing
shale rock with blasts of water, sand and chemicals.

Opponents
warn that the technology risks causing small earthquakes, polluting
water supplies, blighting the countryside and affecting house prices.

Possible
sites for the extraction of shale gas have been identified across the
north of England, from Morecambe Bay and Cheshire across to North
Lincolnshire and Humberside. The Weald Basin and the central belt of
Scotland also harbour potentially valuable deposits, experts say.

Mr
Hancock told the Daily Mail: ‘Fifty years ago there was a debate about
whether we get oil out from under the North Sea. Our country would have
been much poorer if we had chosen not to do so.

‘Now we need to extract the gas that’s deep beneath the ground to improve our energy security and provide jobs and prosperity.

‘Aberdeen
has become a global hub for offshore oil and gas expertise. We want
Blackpool to become the hub for expertise in onshore oil and gas.

‘We
have to make sure that when the revenues flow, we make best use of
them. As well as money going directly to local communities and
landowners, we are also working on a sovereign wealth fund to make sure
the revenues are well spent on behalf of the nation.

‘Lots of
different countries have these funds. Norway is the best example and the
Shetland Islands also have a fund using some of the oil revenues that
they keep.

‘When we extract shale gas, there is the potential for
very large returns and we have to ensure they are spent wisely. A
sovereign wealth fund would make sure the money is spent for the
long-term.

‘There is a very good case for it to focus on where the shale flows from, which would make at least part of it a northern fund.’

Mr Hancock said it was estimated that at least £3.5 billion a year in net benefits could flow from shale extraction.

‘One
shale pad has the potential to generate between £5 million and £10
million-worth of gas over its lifetime, which is a transformative amount
in a local community.

‘The truth is, nobody knows exactly how
much is down there or how much we can get out. The way to find out is to
get on with it.’

As well as the economic benefits, Mr Hancock suggested it was important to reduce Britain’s dependence on foreign gas.

‘In
terms of our energy security, we import eight per cent of our gas from
Qatar. We import a small amount from Russia. Domestic gas is a much more
secure supply,’ he said.

‘It has been extracted from the North Sea for 50 years, but that’s on a downward trend.’

Despite
Mr Hancock’s enthusiasm for the technology, some of the Government’s
own energy advisers suggested yesterday that ministers may have
overstated the potential of fracking to transform the British economy.

Criticising
politicians’ ‘premature’ claims, scientists from the UK Energy Research
Centre said the need for gas is falling - not growing - and shale can
only have a limited role in Britain.

Professor Jim Watson,
research director of UKERC and an advisor to the Department of Energy
and Climate Change (DECC), dismissed suggestions of a rapid economic
revolution.

‘I think where the Government has gone wrong is
talking this whole thing up, in the early days when it first came on the
agenda, as if it was going to reduce consumer bills and tackle energy
security problems in a substantial way any time soon,’ he said.

Dr
Christophe McGlade of University College London, an author of a new
report on fracking, said: ‘There’s no evidence there will be a huge boom
in the UK: absolutely explore, but stop banking on it being plentiful
and cheap.’

A sophisticated argument from economics below -- too erudite for the simple Mathusians of the Green/Left

Tyler
Cowen has a column in the New York Times that discusses the issue of
population. I mostly agree with his policy recommendations, but what
interests me is the underlying assumptions. What is the optimal global
population? What is the optimal population for each country? How should
global population be distributed?

Tyler notes that global
population will increase sharply over the next century, with almost all
of the growth occurring in relatively underdeveloped Africa and South
Asia. In contrast, population will actually decline in some countries,
and indeed is already doing so in Japan. So why should we care?

"It's
an area that will prove central to understanding whether nations will
grow richer -- or will stagnate and lose global importance."

This
begs the question of what we mean by "richer" and "stagnate" and
"global importance." Later Tyler notes that many economists have steered
clear of the difficult problem of population:

Many economists
are uncomfortable with population issues, perhaps because they aren't
covered in depth in the standard graduate curriculum, or because they
touch on topics that may be culturally controversial or even politically
incorrect. That's unfortunate.

"In the future, population
economics -- and associated social issues -- are likely to be at front
and center of our most important policy concerns."

This is
probably correct, but leaves out one additional problem---we don't have a
good model. In my area (monetary economics) I take population as a
given, and look for policies that will maximize aggregate utility, or
utility per capita. If we take population as a given then those two
goals are identical. Not all economists are utilitarian, but most use
utilitarian assumptions in their analysis.

Even if population is
assumed fixed, utilitarianism raises all sorts of thorny problems. For
instance, can we really make interpersonal comparisons? But if we allow
population to be endogenous then the problems multiply exponentially.
Perhaps the biggest problem is determining our objective function; what
are we trying to maximize? (And of course, who is "we?") Is it total
aggregate utility? Is it utility per capita? Those two objectives might
lead to radically different policy conclusions.

For the sake of
argument, let's assume that utility is positive, on average. Even this
seems like a leap of faith to me; I can't even imagine how we could
reach that conclusion scientifically. You'd expect the forces of
evolution to program us with strong survival instincts even if most
people "lead lives of quiet desperation." Nonetheless, it seems
completely unproductive to make any assumption other than that most
people are net positive in utility.

The much tougher problem is
whether to focus on average utility, total utility, or some third
category (which seems implied in Tyler's essay.) If average utility is
the right criterion, the optimal global population might be quite small.
Or it might not, we simply don't know. I've lived in both Australia
(1991) and England (1986), which are near the extremes of population
density for the developed world (England is far more densely populated
than metro Atlanta, and Australia has 1/10th the US population in an
area almost as large as the continental US.) It seemed to me that living
standards were considerably higher in Australia, mostly because it was
much less crowded. But that's obviously highly subjective; Australia
lacks a city as sophisticated as London.

On the other hand if
total utility is the right criterion, and if people in even poor
countries are often surprisingly happy (as many surveys suggest), then
the optimal population might be extremely large. Bryan Caplan has made a
similar argument from a non-utilitarian perspective, as do religions
like Christianity.

There are probably intermediate criteria that
put some weight on both average utility and maximizing the number of
geniuses (and hence culture and science,). Here I have something in mind
that might view Germany as in some sense more successful than both
Luxembourg and India, despite having a smaller total GDP than India and a
smaller GDP per person than Luxembourg.

In any case, it seems
clear to me that one reason that economists steer clear of the
population question is that they don't have any confidence in any
particular "model."

I also have a few observations about Japan's
falling population, which is something that Tyler views as being
worrisome. I'm also a bit pessimistic about Japan, but it's worth noting
that it's really hard to make an objective argument that falling
population is a problem, in and of itself. Consider a few possible
scenarios:

1. Suppose Japan's population kept falling until it
reached about half its current level of 125 million. It would still have
almost as many people as Britain and France do today. Would that sort
of population reduction significantly impact its ability to influence
world events? A little bit, but It's hard for me to imagine that Japan's
ability in the long run to hold onto the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, for
instance, will hinge on that sort of change in population. China's
already 11 times more populous, and has nukes. Either China will get he
islands or it won't--I doubt Japanese population will play much of a
role. And are those tiny uninhabited islets actually very important--for
reasons other than national pride?

2. Now let's suppose that
after Japan's population falls in half, real estate becomes so
inexpensive that the Japanese start living in Dallas-style McMansions
and having 2.1 kids per family. So the population levels off and the
Japanese islands are less crowded. Is that population "wrong"? It's hard
to say. Also suppose New Zealand's population grows from 4 million to
40 million, at which point they call a halt to immigration and level
off. New Zealand would still have fewer people than Japan. What should
we focus on, levels or changes? Which country would have the "better"
population policy? It's a historical accident that these two highly
fertile Pacific islands have such vastly different populations. Why
should we regard either country's current population as being even close
to "optimal?"

3. Is aging really a problem? Aging is generally
associated with better health. Suppose we made the retirement age for
public pensions equal to life expectancy minus 25% of the gap between
life expectancy and age 20. In other words, if life expectancy was 80,
people would retire at 80 - 0.25(80-20), which equals 65. If life
expectancy rose to 100, the retirement age would rise to 80. An aging
population by itself does not create any special challenges for fiscal
policy, unless we allow it to. I.e. unless we arbitrarily keep reducing
the share of adult years that people are required to work before getting
a public pension. On the other hand aging combined with a low birth
rate, as in Japan, does put a temporary burden on the public sector,
until Japan's population levels off. But it's a transitional problem,
not a long run problem.

To summarize, I remain an extreme
agnostic on all population questions. I have no idea what the optimal
population is for planet Earth. If there is a "true" answer to that
question, it might well be 20 billion, or 2 billion, or zero. And how
much weight should we put on animal welfare? Given all that uncertainty,
I'll keep working to improve living standards for the people who are
actually here, by advocating non-destructive monetary policies such as
NGDPLT. I'll let much smarter people like Bryan and Tyler wrestle with
the big questions.

PS. You might think my real estate price
argument is implausible, as Japan would still be much more densely
populated than places like Australia. But Australia has strict zoning
laws, and hence I'd guess that in 50 years houses in Sydney will cost
much more than in Osaka.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

12 November, 2014

The prophecies never stop

They've got a shiny new model

Global warming caused by greenhouse emissions may slow down before it speeds up again, scientists claim.

Man-made
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere forms a blanket around Earth, trapping
heat and preventing it from escaping back into space, causing
temperatures to rise.

While this blanket-effect may cause a brief
pause, global warming is expected to speed up because of the amount of
carbon dioxide that has been emitted into the atmosphere, researchers
warn.

A team from the University of Washington and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explained that instead of
carbon dioxide simply creating a blanket to slowly warm the planet, the
story is more complicated - although the ending is the same.

Carbon
dioxide being belched out by factories and vehicles acts as a blanket,
trapping long-wave infrared energy coming off the Earth.

The
atmosphere then emits less of this long-wave radiation to space because
the upper atmosphere is cooler than the Earth's surface.

But the
Earth gradually heats up under this ‘blanket’ and hotter objects emit
more long-wave radiation, according to the Pnas study.

So within
about a decade the effect of adding the thicker ‘blanket’ has been
cancelled by the warmer body emitting more energy, the experts
explained.

In the longer term, the study and its computer models
show that the Earth will begin to absorb more shortwave radiation - the
high-energy rays coming directly from the sun.

Experts have
previously shied away from talking about shortwave radiation because
clouds can reflect this visible light back to space and clouds remain one of the big unknowns under climate change.[A crucial admission]

The
researchers warn that the planet is likely to have less ice and the air
will become more humid under climate change, both of which will act to
absorb more shortwave radiation from the sun.

Those effects will be like putting tanning oil on the planet, letting it absorb more of the sun's incoming rays, they explained.

Melting
ice creates darker surfaces that can absorb more heat, and the more
melting, the more heat it can absorb. Likewise, warmer air holds more
water vapour, causing it to absorb solar radiation that might otherwise
bounce back off clouds, ice or snow.

‘While greenhouse gases trap
one type of radiation, it's the other type - visible, shortwave
radiation - that is really sustaining global warming over the long
term,’ said co-author Kyle Armour, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT.

The
computer models should help scientists better detect climate change in
satellite data, which can measure both shortwave radiation reflected by
the Earth and long-wave radiation emitted by the Earth.

Most of the study's simulations involved a one-time addition of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Yet
one scenario simulated continuously increasing carbon dioxide, as is
happening now, and found the long-wave radiation effect lasted about 20
years before the shortwave effect took over.

Professor of
atmospheric sciences David Battisti at Washington University said: 'Our
results do not change our overall expectation that the planet will
continue to warm due to the burning of fossil fuels, but they do change
our fundamental understanding of how that warming comes about.'

Fracking
firms must be allowed to cause far more significant earth tremors if
the Government wants the shale gas industry to succeed, leading
academics have warned.

Current regulations, imposed two years
ago, are equivalent to banning buses from driving past houses or
prohibiting the slamming of wooden doors, according to Dr Rob Westaway
and Professor Paul Younger, of the University of Glasgow's School of
Engineering.

The academics claimed that the overly-stringent
rules, which force fracking operations to be stopped if tremors above
0.5 on the Richter scale are detected, were acting as a deterrent to
would-be investors in Britain’s hoped-for shale gas boom.

Fracking
involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into the ground at high
pressure to hydraulically fracture rocks, releasing gas trapped within
them.

Ministers drew up the current restrictions following a
moratorium on fracking, imposed after Cuadrilla caused two earth tremors
while fracking near Blackpool in 2011. The tremors measured 1.5 and 2.3
on the Richter scale.

Earthquakes below 3 on the Richter scale
are not generally felt on the surface and only those above magnitude 4
are regarded as “significant” by the British Geological Survey,
according to fracking trade body the UK Onshore Operators Group (UKOOG).

A
report commissioned by Cuadrilla had originally suggested a much higher
limit of 1.7 on the Richter scale before fracking operations should
cease.

Dr Westaway said the current rules were
“ridiculous”. “The present regulation is a deterrent to investment
and will need to be changed before energy companies are willing to
invest the large sums that will need to be spent to develop shale gas in
the UK,” he said.

"If regulations for other vibration-causing
activities were similarly restrictive you'd have to prevent buses from
driving in built-up areas or outlaw slamming wooden doors."

In a
paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and
Hydrogeology, the academics said they had concluded that the maximum
possible tremor that could be caused by fracking would be 3.6 on the
Richter scale – and this was “very unlikely”.

Professor Younger said: "That might be sufficient to cause minor damage on the surface such as cracked plaster.”

But
he said there was “already regulation in place for compensation for
similar incidents caused by RAF fly-bys or mining operations”. He
suggested it would "make sense for similar schemes to be put into place
for fracking".

"For example, induced earthquakes of magnitude 3
from fracking activities 1.6 miles below the earth's surface will create
surface vibrations similar to the limits allowable from quarry
blasting," he said.

These surface vibrations caused by a
magnitude 3 earthquake would be roughly 25 times those that would be
likely to be caused by the current limit of a 0.5 magnitude quake.

A
spokesman for Cuadrilla said: “Whilst Professor Young and Dr Westaway
are correct that the current seismic restrictions in place for hydraulic
fracturing are low compared with other industries we support the
Government’s undertaking that for the exploration phase of shale gas,
seismic levels will be stringent with a view to further review once it
can be confirmed that levels can be adjusted upwards without
compromising safety.”

A spokesman for UKOOG said the industry was
“committed to working within” the existing regulations set by the
Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

“The system was
designed by DECC in consultation with the industry to control the
effects of induced seismicity during the shale exploration phase,” he
said.

“It is recognised by both DECC and industry that the
current [threshold] is subject to review as more is known about local
geology, faulting systems and well performance. Only time will tell how
restrictive or not the current threshold is, but it is important that
the industry is aligned on managing induced seismicity in a pro-active
manner.”

A DECC spokesman said: “The threshold was set on the
basis of a report by a group of independent experts. Our robust
regulatory regime will allow shale exploration to take place while
keeping the public safe.”

After
surviving a storm-tossed voyage, King James I concluded that witches
must have conjured tempests to do him ill because nothing ever happens
by chance. In promoting the notion that climate trends are shaped by an
industrialised world's CO2 emissions, warmists are in the same boat

John Reid

What
bothers me, in the light of the continued denial by some of The Pause —
the global climate’s prolonged refusal to grow warmer as the “settled
science” predicted — is how this whole climate issue reflects a deeper
malaise. It suggests a sort of Calvinistic determinism in which the
future is cast in concrete and all that remains for us to do is to
remove the form-work. This is in sharp contrast to Eastern philosophy,
such as Taoism and the I Ching, which are based on the idea of
continuous change. As Heraclitus noted quite some time ago, we may never
step twice into the same river.

Determinism has long been there,
underlying Western Christian thought, but it has recently come to
dominate (or perhaps replace) scientific thinking. I believe that this
is an unintended consequence of numerical modeling which is now
widespread in science. Computers have, in general, been such a boon to
science that no-one any longer questions the validity of some
applications, particularly those numerical models which are based on
differential equations. All such models rest on certain assumptions —
assumptions which are very rarely questioned or even acknowledged. These
include assumptions about the complete absence of discontinuities —
cliffs and fronts and shocks — which are, in reality, widespread in
nature.

However, by far the most subtle and far-reaching hidden
assumption is that of determinism, the idea put forward by Pierre-Simon
Laplace that if une intelligence knows the precise state of the universe
at one instant it can predict the state of the universe at any future
time. This idea underlies computer modeling and, in my view, is the root
cause of much of the vitriol expressed by warmists. It goes
hand-in-hand with ideas of omniscience and perfectability.

The
other edge of this deterministic sword is the idea of the Malevolent
Force. Under this mentality nothing ever happens by chance and so, when
things go wrong and our predictions fail, then there must be a reason.
The reason is usually human. If a divinely appointed king is threatened
by a storm at sea then it must be the fault of witches, as James I
concluded after a pair of tempest-tossed voyages. If a Communist utopia
fails, then it must be the fault of recidivists. If a climate model is
called into question, it must be the mischief of deniers.

This is
not science. This is not physics. Physicists have understood the
underlying stochastic (i.e.random) propensities of nature for more than a
century. To a physicist, deterministic, numerical models of natural
processes may have their uses, but they are known to be limited in
scope. Meteorological models cannot predict beyond about a week ahead.
These models are typically time-domain models and their underlying
assumption of continuity is known to be wrong, no more than a useful
approximation.

On the other hand stochastic models (i.e. models
which contain some random elements) are usually frequency-domain models
and are much more powerful. If the theory doesn’t fit the data, then the
theory is wrong; there is no room for special pleading. Stochastic
models frequently involve an examination of the distribution of energy
or variance with frequency known as a “power spectrum”. It was this sort
of modeling which led to the invention of quantum mechanics in the last
decade of the nineteenth century, one of the great triumphs of modern
physics.

Today the climate field is once again dominated by
time-domain, deterministic modeling; computer programmers have replaced
physicists. A deterministic modeler looks at the graph of global average
temperature for the last century and sees that it is increasing. This
small change in temperature must have a cause because everything has to
have a cause, according to his or her world view. A good candidate must
be increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 due to modern industry. In the
laboratory CO2 absorbs radiant heat, so this must be more of the same on
a global scale. The modeler ignores the simple physical facts that
total man-made production of CO2 since the start of the Industrial
Revolution only accounts for about one percent of the total CO2 in the
ocean-atmosphere system and that convection completely dominates
radiation in the transport of heat through the atmosphere. Never mind,
they tell themselves, we can always plug in enough feedbacks and fudge
factors to make the model work.

At least in the short term.

A
stochastic modeler (i.e. a physicist) looks at the same data and sees
quasi-cyclic random fluctuations superimposed on a linear trend. It
looks like red noise, which means that random variations are bigger at
longer time scales than at shorter time scales. The apparent linear
trend in recent global average temperature is quite possibly the outcome
of noise components which are longer than the record length.
Examination of much longer records of temperature data from ice-cores
shows that this is indeed the case. The data does indeed have a red
spectrum, and the observed temperature record is typical of what you get
when you take a short sample from such a red noise time series. There
is nothing unusual about the twentieth century climate.

The
stochastic modeler then takes a longer look at the ice core time series
over the last half million years or so. It is very interesting. There
have indeed been large swings in climate. The last one ended 11,000
years ago. Climate at this longer time scale looks very much like a
particular type of red spectrum known as a “random walk”. (A
random walk is the sum that you get if you throw a coin over and over
again and add one for heads and subtract one for tails after each
throw.) There is a big difference though. Random walks tend to wander
further and further away from zero (variance increases with time) but
the temperature throughout the succession of ice ages remains within a
narrow channel (between about -18 and +10 deg C). It is a “bounded
random walk”.

Why should it be bounded?

Simple physics
tells us that, even in the complete absence of greenhouse gases, the
planet cannot get any colder than the Ice Age temperature of -18 C
because, at that temperature, the earth’s surface radiates the same
amount of heat that it receives from the sun. This is the
Stefan-Boltzman Law and it accounts for the lower boundary.

It is
an observed fact that, in the present epoch, the surface temperature of
the sea under natural conditions in the tropics rarely rises above 28
deg C. Any extra heat causes no increase in temperature. Instead, adding
heat causes more rapid evaporation, followed by more vigorous turbulent
convection (a stochastic process) which carries the extra heat to the
top of the atmosphere where radiates into space. This accounts for the
upper boundary.

The stochastic modeler’s theory of climate as a bounded random walk is physically reasonable.

On
the other hand, a deterministic modeler (e.g. the palaeoclimatologist
Richard Ally in the video below) looking at the same Ice Age temperature
time series, sees that there have been large, rapid fluctuations which
he cannot explain because he does not understand stochastic process. His
response? Climate is obviously highly unstable and we don’t understand
it and so we cannot be too careful, therefore we must de-industrialise
the world immediately.

And the present pause? To a stochastic
modeler it comes as no surprise. It could have been predicted 20 years
ago on a desktop computer using a simple autoregressive (AR) model.
However, such mundane predictions are rarely published or funded. Only
alarmism works.

UK: Hinkley Point C verdict clears the way for new UK nuclear; opens possibilities in Europe

The
prospects for new nuclear plants in the UK have been given a boost with
a European Commission approval of the Contract for Difference funding
mechanism. While there are some organisations against the project, the
CfD mechanism could open the door to new-build projects in Europe.

EDF
Energy’s plans for a new reactor in the UK have cleared a major hurdle
with European Commission (EC) approval of the funding mechanism
involved.

The Hinkley Point C project in Somerset, west England,
was dependent on EC acceptance of the UK government’s proposed Contract
for Difference (CfD) scheme.

Over the last year the EC has led a
probe into whether the CfD concept, which would guarantee EDF an income
of GBP£92.50 (USD$155/€112) per megawatt-hour for the 35-year contract
term of the plant, constituted state aid.

“The Commission found
that the long-term contract and the guarantee constitute an appropriate
and proportionate way for the UK to meet its need for secure, low carbon
energy,” said EDF in a press release.

In theory, the ruling
clears the way for EDF and its project partners to make a final funding
decision, which is expected to happen before the end of this year.

Legal challenges

Meanwhile,
however, the non-nuclear Republic of Austria and Ecotricity, a UK
renewable energy supplier, are both said to be pondering legal
challenges to the EC decision, according to press reports.

Austria’s
opposition to the funding mechanism was made public before the outcome
of the EC investigation. A source at EDF said the company had not yet
seen any further evidence of the lawsuits.

It is understood any
parties wishing to contest the EC finding would first have to
demonstrate that they would be directly affected by the decision.

Whether
or not the legal threats translate into formal lawsuits remains to be
seen; neither the Austrian government nor Ecotricity responded to
requests for information from Nuclear Energy Insider. It is also unclear
whether other parties will come forward to challenge the EC finding.

In
the meantime, though, a number of parties in the UK and elsewhere in
Europe are also said to be watching developments with interest, but with
a possible view to using similar funding arrangements elsewhere.

CfD scheme

“We
understand that other countries in Europe, such as Poland, have already
expressed an interest in the CfD scheme,” says Dr Jonathan Cobb, senior
communication manager at the World Nuclear Association in London.

“Existing
measures, such as the carbon price floor or the Emissions Trading
Scheme, do not adequately meet the market failure which exists in the UK
market. Where similar market failures exist elsewhere in Europe, the
CfD scheme will be one option to address these failures.”

Similar
schemes could be applied to funding for nuclear, or indeed a range of
low-carbon generation projects, elsewhere in Europe, Cobb points out.

“Although
this judgement relates only to the Hinkley Point C project, the
approval establishes the CfD as a valid option for such projects.”

For now, EDF is preparing for the outcome of the final investment decision later this year.

Preparation work

The
company is already carrying out some preparation work on site,
including road improvements and engagement with suppliers, although EDF
Energy emphasises that this is “at their own commercial risk.”

Pending
a positive go-ahead on investment, EDF says Hinkley Point C, which is
forecast to cost expected to be £14bn in 2012 money, is still on track
for commissioning in 2023.

In parallel, the EC and the UK
Secretary of State will need to approve waste transfer contract
arrangements. EDF also hopes the European decision could spell good news
for its next new-build project, Sizewell C, which too is expected to
rely on CfD funding in order to be viable.

If this second project
goes ahead then EDF has agreed with the UK government that the CfD
‘strike price’ for both plants will drop to £89.50 per megawatt hour.

In
addition, says EDF: “As proposed in October 2013, the Contract for
Difference already contained a series of ‘gainshare’ mechanisms in which
customers would benefit if the project construction costs or equity
returns were more favourable than forecast.

What
the midterm voters wanted was an economy that returned to its average
3.3% annual growth since the end of World War II. For six years of the
Obama presidency, growth has all but disappeared. In 2013, as measured
by the World Bank, it was barely 1.9% That translated into a lack of
jobs, stagnant middle class income, and what Obama correctly called the
Great Recession, but could not end.

Instead, in the lead-up to
the midterm elections, he was still talking about “climate change” as
the greatest threat to the nation and the world. For the voters,
however, climate change wasn’t even on its list of priorities and with
good reason, there is nothing anyone or any nation can or should do
about the great forces of nature that determine what the Earth’s climate
will be; starting with the Sun.

The day after the elections two
major environmental organizations, the Sierra Club and Friends of the
Earth (FOE), wrote to their members. Their message was similar and their
conclusions were absurd.

“The election’s over and the planet
lost,” wrote Erich Pica, FOE president. “The next Congress will be
controlled by politicians elected with millions of dollars of the Koch
brothers’ oil money—putting at risk the vital environmental protections
we’ve fought so hard to achieve.” FOE has more than 2 million activists
in 75 nations including the U.S.

What Pica does not mention in
his letter is the estimated $85 million spent on six Senate races by
what The Hill described as “the nation’s top environmental groups
including the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the
Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and
billionaire Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate…”

So the Koch brother’s money is evil, but environmental organizations’ money is okay?

As
far as FOE’s Pica is concerned, “The truth is, President Obama hasn’t
always done the right thing for the environment. He should have denied
the Keystone Pipeline years ago, he should be rolling back unchecked
fracking, and he should have taken stronger action on climate both at
home and in international negotiations.”

FOE could care less
about the thousands of jobs the Keystone pipeline would create, plus the
revenue from refining the oil it would transport to the Gulf States. As
for fracking, it is not “unchecked.” It has to be done within the
context of safety and environmental laws. As for the climate, China and
India are just two nations increasing the use of coal to generate the
electrical power they need to stimulate industrialization and improve
the lives of their citizens by bringing power where he has never been
before.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club,
wrote that “Friends of Big Oil have taken control of the Senate”
claiming they have “a 100-day action plan that reads like Big Oil’s wish
list. Our opposition is about to have free reign to implement their
anti-environment agenda. And approving the Keystone XL pipeline and
destroying proposed environmental regulations top their list.”

Oh,
really? If the polls and elections are any indicator, a lot of
Americans want to see the pipeline construction. As for the
“anti-environment agenda”, that too is pure fiction. What Americans
oppose is the forced closure of electricity generation plants in the
name of a global warming that is not happening. Or a climate change over
which no government has any role or control.

To drive home his
doom-and-gloom message, Brune added that “Rare species of wildlife
already hanging by a threat will not survive this onslaught.”
Consider the absurdity of the claim that a Republican controlled
Congress will be responsible for species extinction. For good measure,
Brune, like the FOE, mentioned the Koch brothers, labeling them “big
polluters.” Since when is drilling for oil and providing it to a world
that runs on it “pollution”? It’s not. It’s progress that benefits
humanity.

Commenting on the elections, Dr. Jay Lehr, the Science
Director of The Heartland Institute, a free market think tank,
characterized them as “the repudiation of the President’s policies” and
the nation’s political pundits all agree. Dr. Lehr called for “a bill to
require the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline which has
bipartisan support and has passed every environmental test.”

Dr.
Lehr called on Congress to “require the government to open up public
lands to environmentally safe mineral and energy exploration as well as
speed up approval of permits to drill and mine for resources on already
approved lands. This will ensure our resource independence in both areas
for centuries to come.”

High on my list of priorities was
reflected by Dr. Lehr’s call for Congress “to take charge of the funding
of the Environmental Protection Agency which has gone rogue in efforts
to impede virtually all economic development in our nation, and
eventually phase out the EPA, passing on its responsibilities to a
committee of the whole of our fifty state environmental protection
agencies.”

A November 6 article, “Climate change supporters
suffer losses”, published in The Hill, reported that “Despite millions
spent to make climate change a wedge issue during the midterms,
environmentally friendly candidates didn’t fare well on Election Day.”
Even so, the Sierra Club’s Brune was quoted saying, “Public support is
solidly behind action to tackle the climate crisis. While we have lost
friends in Congress, we are gaining them in the streets, as our movement
grows stronger and broader.” NOT!

Frances Beinecke, president of
the Natural Resources Defense Council, echoed Brune’s empty boasts.
“Whatever may have driven individual races, the American people want
action on climate change.” NOT!

As far as the environment is
concerned, it is way down on the list of the voter’s priorities and the
change of leadership and control of Congress reflects that. The voters
don’t want a lot of vapid, idiotic talk of climate change and other
environmental fantasies. They want jobs. They want an economy that will
provide them. They want a better future for themselves and their
children. And whether they know it or not, they want a conservative
approach to government.

Pentti
Linkola carries Greenie assumptions to their logical conclusions.
He would make Stalin look like a humanitarian if he ever got any power

Quotations from Linkola:

"What
to do, when a ship carrying a hundred passengers suddenly capsizes and
there is only one lifeboat? When the lifeboat is full, those who hate
life will try to load it with more people and sink the lot. Those who
love and respect life will take the ship's axe and sever the extra hands
that cling to the sides."

"The composition of the Greens seems
to be the same as that of the population in general — mainly pieces of
drifting wood, people who never think."

"A minority can never have any other effective means to influence the course of matters but through the use of violence."

"Any
dictatorship would be better than modern democracy. There cannot be so
incompetent dictator, that he would show more stupidity than a majority
of the people. Best dictatorship would be one where lots of heads would
roll and government would prevent any economical growth."

"The
most central and irrational faith among people is the faith in
technology and economical growth. Its priests believe until their death
that material prosperity bring enjoyment and happiness - even though all
the proofs in history have shown that only lack and attempt cause a
life worth living, that the material prosperity doesn't bring anything
else than despair. These priests believe in technology still when they
choke in their gas masks."

"That there are billions of people over 60kg weight on this planet is recklessness."

"Alternative movements and groups are a welcome relief and a present for the society of economic growth."

"We
will have to...learn from the history of revolutionary movements — the
national socialists, the Finnish Stalinists, from the many stages of the
Russian revolution, from the methods of the Red Brigades — and forget
our narcissistic selves."

"Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed."

"A
fundamental, devastating error is to set up a political system based on
desire. Society and life are been organized on basis of what an
individual wants, not on what is good for him or her...Just as only one
out of 100,000 has the talent to be an engineer or an acrobat, only a
few are those truly capable of managing the matters of a nation or
mankind as a whole...In this time and this part of the World we are
headlessly hanging on democracy and parliamentary system, even though
these are the most mindless and desperate experiments of the
mankind...In democratic coutries the destruction of nature and sum of
ecological disasters has accumulated most...Our only hope lies in strong
central government and uncompromizing control of the individual
citizen."

"If the present amount of Earths population is preserved and is reduced only by the means of birth control, then:

Birthgiving
must be licenced. To enhance population quality, genetically or
socially unfit homes will be denied offspring, so that several birth
licences can be allowed to families of quality.

Energy production must be drastically reduced. Electricity is allowed only for the most necessary lighting and communications.

Food:
Hunting must be made more efficient. Human diet will include rats and
invertebrate animals. Agriculture moves to small un-mechanized units.
All human manure is used as fertilizer.

Traffic is mostly done
with bicycles and rowing boats. Private cars are confiscated.
Long-distance travel is done with sparse mass transport. Trees will be
planted on most roads.

Foreign affairs: All mass immigration and
most of import-export trade must stop. Cross-border travel is allowed
only for small numbers of diplomats and correspondents.

Business
will mostly end. Manufacture is allowed only for well argumented needs.
All major manufacturing capacity is state owned. Products will be
durable and last for generations.

Science and schooling:
Education will concentrate on practical skills. All competition is
rooted out. Technological research is reduced to extreme minimum. But
every child will learn how to clean a fish in a way that only the big
shiny bones are left over."

In the eyes of the most credible
sources, planet Earth can sustain a half-billion humans without any
sizable destruction of our habitat, or any loss in species or stability
of our ecosystem. Any numbers higher than that, no matter how much they
recycle, will cause environmental chaos.

The modern
leftist-tinged environmental movement is terrified of telling anyone
that they cannot breed and keep buying whatever strikes their fancy, but
someone must do this in the future. The sooner we do it, the fewer
people in the future will be left without a means of sustenance and thus
require termination.

"We still have a chance to be cruel. But if we are not cruel today, all is lost."

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

11 November, 2014

Living in cities makes you look older: Polluted urban air will make you age 10 per cent faster than in the country (?)

This
claim is full of holes. For a start it appears to have been done
in China, where the pollution is apocalyptic in many places and includes
all sorts of industrial chemicals. So its generalizability to
other countries cannot be accepted. Secondly, the interpretation
of the results is guesswork anyway. There are many differences
between city and country living other than pollution. A more
straightforward interpretation of the results would be to say that city
living is more stressful and that produces the differences observed

Women
who live in the countryside look younger for longer, a study
suggests. City living makes the skin age 10 per cent faster than a
rural existence.

Costmetics firm Procter & Gamble claims
that polluted air contains 224 chemicals which damage the skin.
The airborne particles each damage proteins in the skin called keratins,
which stop cells drying out.

A study of 200 women aged between
30 and 45, funded by P&G, compared the skin quality of inner-city
dwellers with that of women living in the country.

Both groups had similar lifestyles and were exposed to comparable amounts of ultraviolet radiation.

But
while those from the country showed higher rates of sunlight-related
ageing, overall damage was worse among those living in the inner city.

The research was carried out by Professor Wei Liu, a dermatologist at the China Air Force general hospital in Beijing.

Frauke
Neuser, scientific spokesman for P&G, which makes Olay and other
skincare products, said: ‘In the past it was believed toxic particles in
urban dust may stick to the face, but are too large to penetrate
skin. ‘We now know particles as small as 0.1 of a micrometre, many
times smaller than a grain of sand, carry a variety of these toxins and
can get below the skin.’

Professor Mark Birch-Machin, a
molecular dermatologist at Newcastle University, told the Sunday Times
there was no dispute that air pollution can damage skin, but added:
‘There are no concrete figures as to how much of a problem this is.’

That looks like defeated Australian Leftist leader Julia Gillard in the toon -- but I don't think she ever did ask that question

British
wind farms paid £43million to stand idle so far this year because they
were producing more power than the National Grid could handle

Public money spent for no public benefit

Wind
farms have been paid £43million to stand idle so far this year, a new
British record. The payments, funded through householders’
electricity bills, were made to suppliers because the National Grid was
unable to use their electricity.

The sums paid in ‘constraint
payments’ to wind farms have risen rapidly in the past four years,
according to electricity market data. The total with two months
still to go has already far surpassed the £32million paid in the whole
of 2013. Payments totalled £6million in 2012 and £174,000 in 2010.

High
winds last month set new daily records for compensation - with
£3.07million paid to 33 wind farms to switch off on a single day,
October 26.

John Constable, of the Renewable Energy Foundation
which campaigns against energy subsidies, said too many wind farms had
been built too quickly, without the infrastructure to cope with the
power.

Officials are also pandering to suppliers running the
Government’s ‘pet technology’, he said, allowing them to charge whatever
they wanted to switch off.

The wind industry claims the payments
are justified because of the operational costs involved in switching
off. They say other energy industries, such as coal plants, can
far more easily stop production and save money when they do so.

But
critics point out that the high value of payments reflect a fundamental
problem with wind power. Wind turbines are inherently
unpredictable, depending on the weather, and so must be controlled to
stop surges causing physical damage to electricity cables and equipment.

The windiest places are often the furthest away from cities where the power is needed, meaning high transmission costs.

The overwhelming majority of the payments to date have been to wind farms in Scotland, where the bulk of wind farms are located.

Electricity
demand in Scotland does not match the power produced on the windier
days, but cable networks to take the power south into England have not
yet been constructed. As a result National Grid has to pay the
wind farm owners to stop generating in order to keep supply and demand
balanced.

Renewable UK, which represents the wind industry,
points out that wind power is reaching more homes than ever before –
supplying a record 24 per cent of the nation’s electricity on one
particularly windy day last month.

Jennifer Webber, its director
of external affairs, said last in October: ‘Wind power is often used as a
convenient whipping boy by political opponents and vested
interests. ‘All the while, it’s been quietly powering millions of
homes across the UK and providing a robust response to its vocal
detractors.’

But Dr Constable said: ‘Managing wind power is a
very expensive business. 'We built too much, too quickly. It
is unpredictable and because it tends to be sited in a location a long
way from people, it costs a lot to transmit.

‘Building more grid
is given as the answer, but that is very expensive - it would have been
cheaper not to build these wind farms in the first place.

‘They
are charging very high prices to switch off - far higher than the cost
of actually producing the power - but officials will not challenge them
because this the Government’s pet technology.’

The cost of wind
power has become an increasingly divisive issue at the heart of
Government. David Cameron has pledged to place new limits on
onshore wind farms if the Tories win a majority at the next election, a
policy that has been bitterly opposed by Liberal Democrats.

Ed
Davey, the Lib Dem Energy Secretary, last week said acting to scrap wind
power was a dangerous and populist idea. Speaking in the House of
Commons, he attacked ‘anti-renewables, anti-wind tendency’ of his
Conservative Coalition colleagues. He said: ‘It is imperative that
these tendencies are resisted, particularly in the run-up to the
general election. Short-term populism is the most dangerous enemy energy
and climate change policy has.’

Defending the constraint
payments yesterday, a spokesman for Mr Davey’s Department of Energy and
Climate Change said: ‘National Grid has been paying coal and gas
generators – and others – to change their planned output well before
wind farms joined the mix.

‘In fact, the majority of compensation
goes to fossil fuel generators rather than onshore wind farms. The
impact on energy bills is negligible.’

Energy regulator Ofgem
told the Sunday Telegraph: ‘National Grid’s costs for making these
payments have increased as more renewable generators have connected to
Britain’s networks before investment programmes have been completed to
build new capacity.

‘Last year Ofgem approved a major eight-year
network investment programme to address this through renewing and
building new capacity.’

The wind industry said it receives a tiny proportion of the budget spent on balancing electricity demand.

A
spokesman for Renewable UK said last night: ‘Constraint payments are
one of the tools National Grid use to manage the supply and demand of
electricity, with payments going to different types of generators, both
renewables and fossil fuels.

‘Last year wind received just 5 per
cent of the total payments for balancing the grid, equating to 65p a
year on the average household bill.’

Ed
Hawkins, climate scientist at Reading University and contributor to
IPCC AR5, does not seem to think too much of fellow climatologist
and uber warmist, Professor Peter Wadhams. It is Wadhams, you may
recall, who has regularly been telling us that all the Arctic ice would
have melted away by now.

Having failed to get it right before,
the good professor now tells us we will have to wait till 2020. This is
his latest offering:

"Get ready to order those beach umbrellas in
Barrow. One of the leading authorities on the physics of northern seas
is predicting an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2020. That’s about
two decades sooner than various models for climatic warming have
indicated the Arctic might fully open.

"No models here," Peter
Wadhams, professor of applied mathematics and theoretical physics at the
University of Cambridge in England, told the Arctic Circle Assembly on
Sunday. "This is data."

Wadhams has access to data not only on
the extent of ice covering the Arctic, but on the thickness of that ice.
The latter comes from submarines that have been beneath the ice
collecting measurements every year since 1979.

This data shows
ice volume "is accelerating downward," Wadhams said. "There doesn’t seem
to be anything to stop it from going down to zero.

"By 2020,
one would expect the summer sea ice to disappear. By summer, we mean
September. … (but) not many years after, the neighboring months would
also become ice-free."

As one of Wadham’s fellow climate
scientists, James Annan, observed: "Hasn’t Wadhams already
predicted 4 of the last 0 ice-free summers?"

In the meantime,
Wadhams might care to study the phenomenon known as the Atlantic
Multidecadal Oscillation, or AMO. It might stop him looking quite so
ridiculous.

When the index starts to rise, Arctic temperatures
increase and ice extent falls, just as it did after 1920 and has done
again since 1975.

In a study published
in the journal Geochronometria, Helama et al. (2014) describe how they
created, calibrated and verified a continuous dendroclimatic record of
the summer temperatures of southeast Finland that spanned the period
from AD 674 to 2010, based on X-ray-derived tree-ring maximum latewood
density (MXD) measurements made on subfossil and modern pine (Pinus
sylvesris) materials.

This record, in their words, depicts
"multi-centennial warmth spanning from the 9th to the 12th century," and
they say that the long-term cooling observed since Medieval times until
the end of the 19th century was similar to what has been observed in
MXD and multi-proxy records of northern Fennoscandia, citing Esper et
al. (2012) and Helama et al. (2010), as well as what has been observed
throughout the entire Northern Hemisphere, citing Mann et al. (1999).
And they add that the warmest 250-year periods in the reconstructions of
Esper et al. and Helama et al. occurred from AD 816-1065 and AD
932-1181, respectively, during what they refer to as the Medieval
Climate Anomaly. In addition, they say this warmth appears to be "coeval
to a number of proxy-based hemispheric climate records that show
evidence concerning the relatively warm conditions during the same
centuries," citing Ljungqvist et al. (2012).

Subsequently, the
six Finnish scientists report that a "concentration of markedly cool
periods was recorded from the 17th to the early 20th century," coeval
with "the wide-spread climatic cooling between AD 1570 and 1900 when
Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures fell significantly below their
recent (AD 1961-1990) mean level," citing Matthews and Briffa (2005).
They also note, in this regard, that the coolest temperatures they
recorded during this "Little Ice Age" were from the years between AD
1704 and 1753. And this interval, in their words, "was synchronous with,
albeit slightly post-dating, the period of the Maunder Minimum (AD 1645
to 1715," as per Eddy (1976), and especially so with the late Maunder
Minimum (AD 1675-1715) that has been denoted "the climax of the Little
Ice Age in Europe," as per Luterbacher et al. (2001).

Writing
further about this Little Ice Age climax, Helama et al. say it was a
period "during which the overall activity of the Sun was drastically
reduced and sunspots virtually disappeared," citing Hoyt and Schatten
(1998). And they note that cooling in this region could have been
expected "approximately two decades after the solar irradiance
decreases," due to "inertia in the oceanic response and shift towards
the negative phase in the atmospheric oscillations pattern over the
North Atlantic and European land areas," citing Shindell et al. (2001).

Taken
in their entirety, these several observations clearly reveal the
natural, and possibly solar-induced, warming and cooling and warming
again that produced Earth's Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and
Current Warm Period, which phenomenon demonstrates that there is nothing
unusual, unnatural or unprecedented about the Earth's current level of
flat-lining warmth.

Christopher Booker below is quite correct but his allusion to gramophone needles may escape the younger generation

Ploughing through the new “Synthesis Report” put out by the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we may be reminded of
one of those old gramophone records, when the needle got horribly stuck
in a groove. Compiled by many of the IPCC’s veteran alarmists, in yet
another bid to get that “global climate treaty” that isn’t going to
happen in Paris next year, it wheels on all the familiar scare stories.
Melting polar ice, rising sea levels, floods, droughts and hurricanes
are all in there – even though these are largely contradicted not just
by the actual evidence, but even by the much more cautious contents of
the vast technical reports they were meant to be “synthesising”.

On the basis of these increasingly implausible claims, the report’s
authors join the growing chorus of calls for humanity to cut CO?
emissions by 80 per cent, the cost of which, they tell us, would only
require us to reduce the world’s economic growth by a mere 0.06 per
cent, or 1/1,666th.

Their report is aptly dedicated to the memory of Stephen Schneider, a US
physicist who died in 2010 after 40 years as one of the most fanatical
“climate crusaders” of them all. Only by wondrous contortions do they
try to get round their biggest challenge, in accounting for how global
temperatures have failed to rise for 18 years, making a mockery of all
those computer model predictions on which the IPCC’s previous four
reports relied to drive the scare.

Some 40 different theories have now been offered to explain why, despite
the temperature “pause”, the Earth is still in the grip of runaway
warming. The latest suggests that it has been temporarily halted by
“aerosols” emitted by volcanoes, which, strangely, takes us back to one
of the very first scientific papers warning of disastrous climate
change, published in 1971.

As a young doctoral student, Schneider predicted that, although rising
CO? levels could cause global warming, this might be so counteracted by
“aerosols” blocking out radiation from the sun that they could be
“sufficient to trigger an ice age”.

Anti-car nonsense destroys convenience and hurts small business in an Australian country town

Toowoomba: HAIRDRESSER Leanne White has chipped in to pay for her
customers' parking fines because she feels the parking situation in the
area is unfair.

Ms White owns Lush Hair and Beauty on Ruthven St, a strip which recently
lost its angle parking to make way for the addition of a bike lane.

The parallel parks outside her business are two-hour paid meters.

"The council has taken away half the parks to put in the bike lane. I'm
not against the idea of having a bike lane but I never see anyone use
it; cyclists use the footpaths instead," she said.

"We've lost valuable parking for clients and the lack of parking is turning people away.

"We chose this location to be in the CBD and there was ample parking at
the time but now I'm considering relocating the business."

Ms White has bought private parking for her workers because she did not
want them walking from the nearest long-term parking spots available, at
the PCYC. "That's costing me $1600 a year," she said. "It's
not just about business but also a safety issue for us."

She said business owners in the area were running out of patience with
the lack of parking in Ruthven St. "People are screaming for it
but nothing is being done," she said. "I'm planning on organising a
petition because there are so many people concerned."

The owner of La Taste Takeaway Paul Worrall said business in the whole
area had dropped off. "I'm not aware of anyone who thought the
bike lane was a good idea," Mr Worrall said.

He also had major concerns for the lack of accessibility to the library, particularly for elderly and disabled customers.

"I watched one old lady with her child who had Down Syndrome driving
around trying to find a carpark and they were getting visibly upset," he
said.

"The council has made the wrong decision when what you need is more car parks."

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

10 November, 2014

There is no "hidden" heat

Just in case you were not aware, since about 1997 or so, there has been
nearly no global temperature rise. This is despite atmospheric CO2
concentration continuing to rise. To date there are some 55 ideas to
explain this slowdown in global warming. Some of the ‘explanations’
presume the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ is operating as the IPCC
models calculated; it’s just that the heat has hidden elsewhere, maybe
deep in the ocean.

I wondered if there was empirical data available of the greenhouse
effect? And could it show whether or not the greenhouse effect is
increasing with increasing CO2, as the IPCC models expect?

First a very quick summary of the IPCC’s greenhouse theory goes
something like this. Increasing CO2 absorbs some of the upwards
radiation from the surface, and then re-emits it back toward earth. This
has the effect of increasing earth’s atmospheric temperature as
outgoing longwave infrared radiation (OLWIR) is reduced by increasing
quantities of CO2. Then, recognising that water vapour is the main
greenhouse gas, the IPCC models propose that positive feedbacks
dominate. This is where some warming leads to increased water vapour,
and as water vapour is the main greenhouse gas this increases the
greenhouse effect, this further lowers OLWIR, and increases the
temperature.

So let’s see how the measurements fit the theory. I needed two data sets, one for OLWIR, and the other global temperature.

I emailed the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) asking for website directions to their OLWIR data. Their response
was quick and I downloaded monthly average OLWIR (W/m2) for each 2.5
degree latitude by 2.5 degree longitude area of the globe. After
converting the netCDF files to Excel, I scaled each area’s OLWIR to
account for the varying size of the area, resulting in a global average
OLWIR. (I used Cosine(Latitude) to approximate the relative areas).
(There was also some missing data mid 1994 to early 95. I populated this
by a linear interpolation). The resulting annual average OLWIR is shown
in the graph below for the years 1979 to 2012. A linear regression fit
shows a generally increasing trend in OLWIR over this period.

The temperature data I chose is the average of both University of
Alabama Huntsville (UAH) and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS). The result is
also plotted on the graph below. A linear regression fit shows a
generally increasing trend for years 1979 to 2012. 2013.

And now we’ll take a look at the Stefan-Boltzmann (SB) relative
emissivity trend. Using an average global temperature of 14C, the SB
relative emissivity has been derived using E/(K*T^4) for each year and
plotted on the graph. If the greenhouse effect was increasing, the
relative SB should be declining. It’s not. It’s flat lining.

The two primary results of this empirical study are:

The missing heat has gone back to space as it always has – as per SB law, via OLWIR.

And more importantly, the greenhouse effect is not increasing as per IPCC dogma.

Obama's green energy scorecard has already racked up over $2.7 billion
in losses, and now the world's largest solar/fossil
fuel/bird-incinerating plant, co-owned by Google and renewable energy
giant NRG Energy, is asking for an additional $539 million in free
taxpayer funds to pay off their $1.5 billion federal loan.

"the plant has not lived up to its clean energy promise. According to
the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the plant produced only
about a quarter of the power it's supposed to, a disappointing 254,263
megawatt-hours of electricity from January through August, not the
million megawatt-hours it promised."

In addition, the plant recently filed with regulators to greatly
increase the fossil fuels burned by the "solar" plant's inefficient
boiler system, due to insufficient heat input from the Sun on cloudy
days and at night. The plant wants to burn 1,575 million standard cubic
feet [mmcf] of natural gas every year, which will increase its CO2
emissions 59% to 94,749 tons per year.

"To get a sense of that volume, an average U.S. natural gas-fired power
plant [using much more efficient and clean-burning turbines instead of
boilers] might be expected to produce about 200,000 MWh from 1,575 mmcf
of gas, according to the EIA."

Therefore, the plant is producing about 254,263 * 12/8 = ~381,000
megawatt-hours of electricity per year using natural gas that could
otherwise supply 200,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year. Thus,
over one-half [about 52%] of the plant electricity output is from
inefficient use of fossil fuels.

For a huge [$2.2 billion and counting] US taxpayer-subsidized expense,
plus high electricity rates guaranteed by long-term contracts with
California utilities/ratepayers, 59% more greenhouse gas emissions, and
75% less electricity than promised, could Ivanpah be the world's biggest
green energy boondoggle ever?

The Ivanpah solar electric generating plant is owned by Google and
renewable energy giant NRG, which are responsible for paying off their
federal loan. If approved by the U.S. Treasury, the two corporations
will not use their own money, but taxpayer cash to pay off 30 percent of
the cost of their plant, but taxpayers will receive none of the
millions in revenues the plant will generate over the next 30 years.

"They're already paying less than the market rate," said Morris, author
of a lengthy report detailing alleged cronyism and corruption in the
Obama administration's green energy programs. "Now demanding or asking
for a subsidy in the form of a grant directly paying off the loan is an
egregious abuse."

NRG doesn't see it that way, telling Fox News the money is there for the
taking."NRG believes in a clean and sustainable energy future and
therefore participates in available government programs to develop and
expand the use of clean energy to accelerate America’s energy
independence." In 2013, the Obama administration handed out $18.5
billion in renewable energy grants, with $4.4 billion going to solar
projects.

Ivanpah is the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. It
was unveiled in February with great fanfare. Dr. Ernest Moniz, the U.S.
Secretary of Energy, justified taxpayers' investment at the time,
saying, "We want to be technology leaders. It's good for our economy and
it’s also good for helping stimulate the global transition to low
carbon."

But since then the plant has not lived up to its clean energy promise.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the plant
produced only about a quarter of the power it's supposed to, a
disappointing 254,263 megawatt-hours of electricity from January through
August, not the million megawatt-hours it promised.

A NRG spokesman blamed the weather, saying the sun didn't shine as often
as years of studies predicted. However by the four-year mark, NRG has
"every confidence that the plant will function as anticipated for the
life of the facility,"according to the company.

Touted as a clean, green energy, some environmentalists have turned
against concentrated solar as a technology, deeming it dangerous and a
threat to wildlife. Unlike solar photovoltaics, which turn sunlight
directly into electricity, CSP uses thousands of large mirrors to
concentrate reflected sunlight into powerful beams aimed at “power
towers.” The heat generates steam to turn turbines that create
electricity.

The problem is that birds see the mirrors as water. As they approach,
the 800º F solar beams roast any bird that happens to fly by. A recent
study released by the California Energy Commission conducted by the
Center for Biological Diversity called Ivanpah a “mega-trap” that will
kill up to 28,000 birds a year.

The plants' owner at the time, BrightSource Energy, said it will likely
kill only a thousand birds a year. BrightSource came under scrutiny by
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and investigators
found the company received direct “guidance and support from the White
House” for how it obtained its $1.6 billion in federal loans.

Breakthrough Eyed in Farmer’s Property Rights Dispute With Green Group

Martha Boneta’s years of struggle with a powerful conservation group could come to the beginning of an end this week.

Boneta owns the 64-acre Liberty Farm in the Paris area of Fauquier
County, Va. Almost since her family bought the property in 2006, she has
been embroiled in a series of disputes with the Piedmont Environmental
Council.

At issue: the conservation organization’s enforcement of an agreement that limits development of the land.

But the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s board of trustees will meet
Thursday in Richmond to consider a resolution in which it would agree to
take over all enforcement of the easement on Liberty Farm from the
Piedmont Environmental Council.

The environmental council appears to be “open-minded in terms of being
willing to discuss the matter,” the foundation’s executive director,
Brett Glymph, told The Daily Signal.

The foundation has no power to constrain the actions of the
environmental council or other conservation organizations and no
oversight role in state law.

The proposed resolution, Boneta says, merely calls for the organization
to declare it is willing to take over all enforcement if she and the
environmental council can agree it should.

The Piedmont Environmental Council is a land trust, an organization that
works to conserve open space by removing land from development. It
offers easements, which are legal agreements in which property owners
accept cash payments or tax breaks in exchange for accepting limits on
development.

Boneta bought her farm from the Warrenton-based environmental council with the easement attached.

The green group’s aggressive efforts to enforce that easement,
however, have resulted in three lawsuits filed by Boneta. One she
settled with the green group, a second she withdrew but says she may
refile. A third, against Fauquier County over zoning citations, is
pending.

Enter the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. Created by the Virginia General
Assembly in 1966 to oversee easement enforcement and policy matters and
help preserve open lands, the foundation already is a co-holder of the
easement on Boneta’s Liberty Farm.

The foundation inspects the adjoining Oak Road Forest and the land
itself. The Piedmont Environmental Council is responsible for building
structures and architecture.

In September, the outdoors foundation met separately with Boneta and her
lawyer and with the environmental council and its legal counsel.

The meetings led to the resolution, proposed by Boneta’s attorney,
William Hurd, a former solicitor general for the state of Virginia,
which the board could vote on as early as Thursday’s meeting.

“After so many years of inappropriate inspections by the PEC, isn’t it
time for the PEC to step aside and turn its share of the enforcement
role over to [the Virginia Outdoors Foundation]?” Hurd asks in a letter.

It is easy to see why Boneta would agree to a takeover by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

Glymph said Boneta “has caused no trouble” for the organization. The
foundation, in fact, turned down the environmental council’s suggestion
that surveillance cameras be installed to monitor Boneta’s compliance
with the easement covering her property.

Boneta’s relationship with the Piedmont Environmental Council, conversely, has been nothing but rocky.

She has contended in court documents and elsewhere that the green
group’s enforcement efforts went far beyond what was required to ensure
compliance with the easement. She cites snooping through personal
possessions, overzealous zoning enforcement and using high-level
connections at the Internal Revenue Service to trigger an audit of
her finances.

The Piedmont Environmental Council may be equally eager to move on. The
group has endured bad publicity from property rights activists, multiple
articles in The Daily Signal and other media, and Boneta’s appearances
on TV news programs.

The environmental council’s enforcement actions led to state
legislation, known as the Boneta Bill, that took aim at easement
enforcement and clarified farmers’ rights on their land.

The environmental council has issued at least three documents defending itself from Boneta’s charges and assertions.

In one, the group says it holds or co-holds 51 easements that involve
nearly 7,600 acres of land, mostly in Virginia’s Hunt Country. But the
Boneta case is the only time in the environmental council’s 41-year
history that it has gone to court with a property owner.

“The PEC is squandering an incredible amount of money on staff time and
attorneys’ fees in its relentless harassment of Martha Boneta,” said
Bonner Cohen, senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy
Research, a free-market organization that focuses on property
rights. "And all it has to show for it is a raft of richly
deserved bad publicity that has exposed the PEC as an elitist bully
willing to do whatever it takes to crush a small farmer."

The environmental council’s representatives did not respond to The Daily Signal’s phone calls or emails requesting comment.

Glymph, the outdoors foundation’s executive director, said the
environmental council “did not shut the door on the proposal” to move
toward handing off enforcement of the Liberty Farm easement to the
foundation. She said:

They made no promises, but it appeared to me they were open-minded in
terms of being willing to discuss the matter further. They seemed
receptive to the idea.

Boneta and representatives of the Piedmont Environmental Council
each will get 20 minutes to address the board of the Virginia Outdoors
Foundation at Thursday’s meeting.

The board has moved the meeting to the Virginia State Capitol building
to accommodate what is expected to be a much larger crowd than its
gatherings usually draw.

If the foundation’s board adopts the resolution, it would be up to
Boneta and the environmental council to come to an agreement under which
the foundation would assume enforcement responsibilities.

John Taylor, president of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, a
free-market policy group, credits Boneta for “shining a light and
exposing the actions” of the Piedmont Environmental Council.

But Taylor also expressed concern that average citizens who differ on
public policy with well-funded groups such as the environmental council
will continue to be at a disadvantage. He said:

We’re seeing a disparate influence of money, and it’s not a fair fight.
Here in Virginia, the environmental groups are trying to put all of the
rural lands into conservation easements, and they have abandoned any
consideration of economic growth and job opportunities.

This makes it difficult for future generations to own property and earn
money. I don’t support permanent easements that forever lock away
land. I’m glad Martha [Boneta] is doing what’s she’s doing. The exposure
is good for all of us.

Another Endangered Species Act Legal Victory for Landowners and Conservation

Yesterday, proponents of balancing the mandates of the Endangered
Species Act with human needs scored a major victory. The U.S. District
Court in Utah struck down the federal government’s protection of the
Utah prairie dog by ruling in favor of People for the Ethical Treatment
of Property Owners, represented by Jonathan Wood of the Pacific Legal
Foundation, in a lawsuit challenging the constitutional ability of the
federal government to regulate the prairie dog on non-federal land. This
decision may also lead to more successful endangered species
conservation.

This victory comes on the heels of another legal victory a month ago in
which the Federal District Court in D.C. found in favor of the 2012
decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to list the dunes
sagebrush lizard under the Endangered Species Act. The judge in the case
based much of his ruling on a conservation plan for the lizard that is
successful due in no small part to its protection of participating
landowners’ confidentiality. This encourages landowners to participate
without fear that data about their property could be used by the Fish
and Wildlife Service to invoke the Endangered Species Act’s much-feared
regulations.

The Texas Comptroller, Susan Combs, who led the effort on the
conservation plan, was granted lead intervenor status in the case. The
conservation plan involves a wide range of stakeholders, including
various oil and gas trade associations, which were also granted
intervenor status.

More broadly, the court’s decision is a vindication of the approach
taken by the Texas Comptroller’s office over the past several years to
find creative, state-based solutions to endangered species issues, which
are often complex, conflict-ridden, and involve a dizzying array of
public and private sector interests—all of which are trying to cope with
the country’s most powerful environmental law.

The Utah prairie dog case is different than the dunes sagebrush lizard
case but equally as important. The crux of the lawsuit brought by People
for the Ethical Treatment of Property Owners and the Pacific Legal
Foundation is that the federal government’s use of the Constitution’s
Commerce Clause as justification for protecting the prairie dog—because
the rodents are somehow involved in interstate commerce, which creates a
“nexus” for federal regulation—is invalid because, quite simply, the
prairie dog lives entirely within Utah and is not involved any
interstate commerce. “The problem, for the federal government, is that
the species is only found in this small area of Utah and has nothing to
do with the nation’s $15 trillion economy,” according to Jonathan Wood.
“Yet, the government attempted to justify its intrusion into this local
matter based on the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.”

The court found:

"Although the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to do many things, it
does not authorize Congress to regulate takes of a purely intrastate
species that has no substantial effect on interstate commerce. Congress
similarly lacks authority through the Necessary and Proper Clause
because the regulation of takes of Utah prairie dogs is not essential or
necessary to the ESA’s economic scheme."

The court also found:

"If Congress could use the Commerce Clause to regulate anything that
might affect the ecosystem (to say nothing about its effect on
commerce), there would be no logical stopping point to congressional
power under the Commerce Clause."

Also figuring in the court’s decision is the Necessary and Proper Clause of Constitution, which states:

"The Congress shall have Power…To make all Laws which shall be necessary
and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all
other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United
States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

While this case has to do with Constitutional law, the reason why
residents of southern Utah are so upset—in particular those in Iron
County because it contains most of the prairie dog’s population—is that
for decades they have been forced to bear the costs, often substantial,
of living with prairie dogs. The examples are legion, but a few of them
are:

* Children have been prevented from playing in the field owned by and
adjacent to Grace Christian Church in the town of Parowan because
prairie dogs pockmarked the field with burrow holes, which could easily
cause injury to a running child.

* In the town of Paragonah, prairie dogs reside in the cemetery where
their burrows undermine headstones and cause them to lean and even tip
over.

* Prairie dog burrows undermine the runway of the Parowan airport,
causing it to sink and buckle in places, which poses a serious safety
hazard.

* Farmers have long suffered from machinery and irrigation
infrastructure damaged by prairie dog burrows, as well as prairie dogs
eating crops. In 1984, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the
Utah prairie dog was costing farmers $1.5 million annually due to crop
loss and equipment damage.

* In Cedar City, the seat of Iron County, “The town has been inundated
with prairie dogs that are leaving parks, gardens, vacant lots, the golf
course and even the local cemetery pockmarked with burrows and
tunnels,” Jonathan Wood of the Pacific Legal Foundation told the Deseret
News.

The desecration of cemeteries in Paragonah and Cedar City by prairie
dogs is in many ways the issue that most angered residents of Iron
County. According to the lawsuit filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation:

“The city wishes to operate a cemetery that is a pleasant and peaceful
place of reflection for people visiting the remains of their deceased
loved ones. But the Utah prairie dogs are a safety hazard for visitors
to the cemetery. Their burrowing creates an uneven ground on which it is
more difficult to safely traverse, particularly for the elderly and
disabled.

“The Utah prairie dog threatens the peaceful operation of the cemetery
and the sanctity of the grave sites. Recently, a funeral service was
interrupted by a prairie dog that scampered around the service and began
barking loudly and incessantly. This disturbance caused great stress to
the unfortunate widow. The prairie dogs also destroy remembrances left
at grave sites. For example, the prairie dogs eat flowers and other
plants that visitors place near tombstones. Also, the city wishes to
expand the cemetery to provide much needed space for additional grave
sites. This expansion, however, has been prevented because the prairie
dog has infested the area.”

In response to these problems, the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1984
reclassified the prairie dog from endangered to the less-imperiled
status of threatened and promulgated a 4(d) rule that allows “take” of
prairie dogs through translocation and lethal means.

But this has done little to solve the problem of prairie dogs occupying
and damaging private land. According to the Service’s 2012 recovery
plan, private lands contain 78% of the Utah prairie dog’s population.
The reason for this is private lands have higher quality forage due to
mowing and irrigation. This is especially true of private lands in Iron
County, which contain 67% of the population.

Since 1984, as it has become increasingly clear that even with the Fish
and Wildlife Service’s permitted “take”, property damage caused by
prairie dogs and resentment by people forced to bear the costs of
harboring the rodents without any compensation has been getting worse.

The summary for policymakers released in early November by the United
Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has once again
betrayed the science found in the body of the report. In addition, its
conclusions and warnings fly squarely in the face of measurable evidence
concerning the state of the climate.

The European Institute for Climate and Energy (which goes by its German
acronym, EIKE) has done a careful analysis of the IPCC summary for
policymakers (SPM) and its synthesis report. These documents purportedly
reflect the findings of the IPCC’s three volumes assessing the science,
vulnerabilities, and possible responses to climate change.

The SPM includes significant contradictions, simplifications, and even
distortions of the science contained in the full reports. In addition,
on major points, its conclusions and warnings stand in stark contrast to
almost all of the measurements and trends observed in nature.

Concerning air temperature and temperature rise, the IPCC’s SPM warns of
dramatic temperature rises under business-as-usual scenarios over the
next century. The actual range of temperature rise reported in the
IPCC’s science reports, however, is as little as 0.3° to a high of 4.8°
Celsius, a 16-fold difference, with all values along the scale equally
likely. In other words, actual temperature rise is just as likely to be
negligible as it is to be dramatic. And all of this ignores a critical
real-world observation: Despite a continued rise in CO2 emissions,
temperatures have not risen for the past 18 years.

In addition, the SPM claims “the global mean sea level in the 21st
Century continues to climb, very likely with a higher speed ... probably
in the range of 26 to 82 cm ...” The reality is sea level rise over the
past 200 years has not accelerated, and over the past decade the rate
of rise has declined.

The story is the same when it comes to crop failures. While the IPCC’s
SPM warns of a decline in staple crops including wheat and corn, each
year new records are being set on crop production. Some of IPCC’s own
work has shown increased CO2 levels are producing an increase in plant
cover and crop growth.

In short, as the German magazine der Spiegel reported, “At the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Alarmism comes before
Accuracy.”

He was responding to the United Nations report on climate change, which
found the world must stop almost all greenhouse gas emissions through a
phased elimination of fossil fuels by 2100 to avoid the worst impacts of
climate change.

Mr Newman agreed that in "the longer term, Queensland has to move to a
new type of economy". "And I have said that before," he said.

"I mean, coal has been great for this state over many decades and coal
will be very important for some decades to come. Gas as a transition
fuel, is a cleaner fuel, and that is a great opportunity and that is why
this government backs gas, because it is cleaner than coal.

"Those who say we can immediately change, I am afraid, are condemning
people in China, and particularly in India, who live in poverty, are
condemning them to that poverty."

The Queensland government has been an unapologetic supporter of mining
projects and is relying on mines opening in the resource-rich Galilee
Basin to turn around the state's economy.

The projects, particularly the Indian-owned Adani Carmichael mine, which
once operational will become the biggest coal mine in the country, have
faced fierce opposition from conservationist and environmental groups.

One Indian conservationist has brought legal action against the
Carmichael mine in the Queensland courts on the basis of the damage it
will bring Indian communities who live near its final destination.

But Mr Newman said if India didn't take Queensland's coal, it would buy
it from somewhere else. "I think the point needs to be made that
to take 1.3 billion people in India out of poverty is going to require
significant energy and coal, particularly, is what they are after," he
said.

"And if Queensland doesn't sell our cleaner coal, our low emissions coal
to them, it will be acquired from other places where the coals have all
sorts of nasties like sulphur in them and it will be burnt.

"They will improve a lot of their people and I think the opportunity for
Queensland is to sell them a superior product as we then work here to
try and transition our economy to a new type of economy in the future."

Adani is expected to begin work on its Galilee Basin projects next year.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

9 November, 2014

Could ADHD be triggered by mothers being exposed to air pollution while pregnant?

It is saddening that I have to say so but the study described below
is typical epidemiological crap. They concluded what they wanted to
conclude and damn the data. The focus of the study was Polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the atmosphere and in food. So what
did the results show? "Maternal and cord adducts were not
significantly correlated with prenatally air monitored PAH, ETS, or
dietary PAH." In other words those villainous PAHs had no effects
that could be detected in the blood of the mother or the blood of the
placenta. So the whole theory fails at the first hurdle. All
other associations observable in the data were not due to anything in
the atmosphere or in the diet. A few molecules of PAH in people must
have come from somewhere but it would appear that they were so few that
the research could not detect their origin. The women examined
were all black NYC residents from the ghettoes so perhaps they got the
stuff from something to do with their lifestyle. Drugs perhaps?

Children exposed to high levels of pollution in the womb are at greater
risk of suffering attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a new study
has found.

Scientists at Columbia University studied 233 non-smoking pregnant women
living in New York. They found children exposed to high levels of
air pollution during pregnancy were five times more likely to have ADHD
by the time they were nine years old.

The nine-year study looked at levels of common pollutants polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Researchers measured the levels of
PAH in maternal and umbilical cord blood shortly after delivery.
And they repeated tests when each of the children were three and five,
measuring levels of PAH in their urine.

Thirty-three children who had high levels of exposure to PAHs, as
measured at birth. Of those, 13 were diagnosed with ADHD
hyperactive-impulsive subtype, seven the inattentive subtype, and 13 had
both.

Professor Frederica Perera, first author of the study, said: 'Those
children born to moms who were exposed to high levels of PAH during
pregnancy had five times the odds of having an increased number of
symptoms.'

PAHs are created when products like coal, oil, gas and rubbish are
burned but not completely. They don't burn easily, and as a result
remain in the environment for long periods of time. Most are used
to conduct research though some are used to make dyes, plastics and
pesticides.

One of the most common ways they enter the body is through breathing in contaminated air.

To establish children's exposure to PAHs in the womb, the scientists
measured levels of fragments of the mothers' DNA bonded to PAH
molecules, also known as DNA adducts, in umbilical cord blood.

Previous studies carried out by Professor Perera and her team identified
links between higher levels of prenatal PAH exposure and developmental
delays in children by the age of three.

They also noted lower IQ scores at five, and increased risk a child will
suffer anxiety, depression and attention problems at six and seven.

The new study, published in the journal PLoS One, looked at the
children's ADHD symptoms using the Child Behavior Checklist and the
Conners' Parent Rating Scale - two screening tests used to diagnose the
condition.

Professor Perera said this is the first time a link has been established
between prenatal PAH exposure and ADHD symptoms. She told
LiveScience: 'If replicated, then these findings could lead to new ways
or stronger ways, better ways, to prevent ADHD.

'By nature, environmental exposures are preventable, this we consider
one possible contributor to ADHD and one that's preventable, and the
findings should be followed up so that necessary preventive strategies
could be taken.'

She said pregnant women concerned about the effect of pollution levels
on their unborn babies, can eat plenty of fresh produce which helps
offset the effects of pollutants.

Children of nonsmoking African-American and Dominican women in New York
City were followed from in utero to 9 years. Prenatal polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbon exposure was estimated by levels of polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbon- DNA adducts in maternal and cord blood collected
at delivery. Postnatal exposure was estimated by the concentration of
urinary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon metabolites at ages 3 or 5.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder behavior problems were assessed
using the Child Behavior Checklist and the Conners Parent Rating Scale-
Revised.

Results

High prenatal adduct exposure, measured by elevated maternal adducts was
significantly associated with all Conners Parent Rating Scale-Revised
subscales when the raw scores were analyzed continuously (N = 233).
After dichotomizing at the threshold for moderately to markedly atypical
symptoms, high maternal adducts were significantly associated with the
Conners Parent Rating Scale-Revised DSM-IV Inattentive (OR = 5.06, 95%
CI [1.43, 17.93]) and DSM-IV Total (OR = 3.37, 95% CI [1.10, 10.34])
subscales. High maternal adducts were positivity associated with the
DSM-oriented Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Problems scale on the Child
Behavior Checklist, albeit not significant. In the smaller sample with
cord adducts, the associations between outcomes and high cord adduct
exposure were not statistically significant (N = 162).

Conclusion

The results suggest that exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
encountered in New York City air may play a role in childhood Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder behavior problems.

Chimerical "savings" from government-encouraged use of home
insulation and lower-powered electrical appliances are supposed to more
than offset green levies on British power bills -- so you can have
your cake and eat it too! Reality is beginning to intrude
however. I wonder if they have yet factored in the fact that lower
powered electrical appliances tend to be run longer. If, for
instance, a low-powered dishwasher doesn't get the dishes very clean,
people tend to re-run the cycle -- thus using MORE power than if
the government hadn't meddled

Family energy bills in five years’ time will be £70 a year higher than previously thought, the Government admitted today.

In 2020, the average energy bill will be £1,319 – around £50 cheaper
than today – the Department of Energy and Climate Change has estimated
in a report published today. This is £92 cheaper than without Government
measure, the report claims.

But in March last year, ministers promised that the raft of green
policies it has introduced to reduce Britain’s dependence on coal would
drive down prices down to £1,245 a year on average – or £166 cheaper
than if the Government did nothing.

It means bills will be some £74 higher than the Government claimed last year.

Despite the setback the Government insists its green policies mean
household fuel bills are £90 cheaper this year than they would be
without the raft of policies to cut emissions and save energy.

Families will also be saving £92 a year on their electricity and gas
bills by 2020, the Department of Energy and Climate Change estimates.

But the figure for the end of the decade is significantly lower than savings of £166 predicted last March.

The assessment shows that while measures to support clean power – like
subsidies for wind farms – push up bills, other policies to save energy,
including insulation programmes and regulations on more efficient
appliances, bring them down.

This year the average household energy bill is £1,369, compared with an
estimated figure of £1,459 if there were no Government energy policies.

The £90 saving includes a £50 reduction as a result of moves brought in by the Government last December.

The majority of the £50 savings came from the Energy Company Obligation
scheme which helps poorer families with energy efficiency measures to
provide them with warmer homes and cheaper bills.

Subsidies for low carbon power makes up around 5 per cent of the average
bill and energy efficiency measures make up around 2-3 per cent, the
assessment shows.

But gas use is down 10 per cent and electricity use is 17 per cent less as a result of policies that save energy, Decc said.

By 2030, bills are predicted to rise to £1,524 with policies on
emissions and energy savings, compared with £1,586 without any measures -
though the estimates do not include extra policies that could be needed
to cut carbon further.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said: ‘We have the best
energy security in Europe - and to stay that way we need to deal with a
legacy of under investment and build a clean, secure energy system based
on home-grown supplies.

‘I’m determined that while we tackle these challenges, consumers don’t
pay a penny more than they have to for the energy they use.

‘We’re making homes warmer and cheaper to run, giving particular help to
the most vulnerable people and avoiding the predicted energy crunch,
meaning we can drive down bills and support investment in the economy
with more secure energy supplies and more stable bills.’

It's been overlooked for decades, but now scientists believe infrared
energy could turn out to be a major contributor to warming in the Arctic
region.

Infrared is invisible to human eyes but accounts for about half the
energy emitted by Earth's surface. This process balances out incoming
solar energy.

However, researchers hadn't previously thought to consider the
long-wavelength region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now, they
believe its inclusion could change existing climate models.

Earth's surface is thought to radiate the equivalent of 17 per cent of incoming solar energy as thermal infrared.

Despite its importance in the planet's energy budget, it's difficult to
measure a surface's effectiveness in emitting far-infrared
energy. As a result, its influence on the planet's climate
is not well represented in climate models, which assume that all
surfaces are 100 per cent efficient in emitting far-infrared energy.

That's not the case. The scientists found that open oceans are much less
efficient than sea ice when it comes to emitting in the far-infrared
region of the spectrum.

This means that the Arctic Ocean traps much of the energy in
far-infrared radiation - a previously unknown phenomenon that is likely
contributing to the warming of the polar climate.

'Far-infrared surface emissivity is an unexplored topic, but it deserves
more attention,' said Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's
Earth Sciences Division.

'Our research found that non-frozen surfaces are poor emitters compared
to frozen surfaces. This discrepancy has a much bigger impact on the
polar climate than today's models indicate.

Professor Feldman's simulations revealed that far-infrared surface
emissions have the biggest impact on the climates of arid high-latitude
and high-altitude regions.

In the Arctic, the simulations found that open oceans hold more
far-infrared energy than sea ice, resulting in warmer oceans, melting
sea ice, and a 2°C increase in the polar climate after only a 25-year
run.

This could help explain why polar warming is most pronounced during the three-month winter when there is no sun.

It also complements a process in which darker oceans absorb more solar energy than sea ice.

'The Earth continues to emit energy in the far infrared during the polar
winter,' Professor Feldman said. 'And because ocean surfaces trap
this energy, the system is warmer throughout the year as opposed to
only when the sun is out.'

The simulations revealed a similar warming effect on the Tibetan
plateau, where there was five per cent less snowpack after a 25-year
run.

This means more non-frozen surface area to trap far-infrared energy, which further contributes to warming in the region.

'We found that in very arid areas, the extent to which the surface emits
far-infrared energy really matters,' said Professor
Feldman. 'It controls the thermal energy budget for the
entire region, so we need to measure and model it better.'

National pundits have largely dismissed the large role that energy played in the Democrat wipeout part deux.

However, the Obama Administration and his big money environmental
extremist allies lost two Senate seats due to the issue, and it is
likely to get worse for the greenies in the next two years.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), described by
Bloomberg News as “a non-profit that assures adequate voltage and power
reserves to keep the electric grid functioning” pushed for delay of
Environmental Protection Agency power plant regulations warning in a
report that, “The proposed timeline does not provide enough time to
develop sufficient resources to ensure continued reliable operation of
the electric grid by 2020.”

House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Subcommittee Chairman Ed
Whitfield (R-KY) reacted by promising, “to do everything we can to
assure American businesses and families are not left in the dark.”

Whitfield continued saying, “NERC’s report underscores the growing
reliability concerns with EPA’s unworkable plan. EPA is seeking to
eliminate one of our nation’s most abundant and affordable sources of
power, but the administration has yet to provide honest answers about
just how damaging the consequences will be for our nation’s power grid
and our economy.”

The Obama Administration regulation designed to force electric
generating utilities to replace coal as a fuel source has come under
increasing scrutiny as its implementation date draws near.

A recent study by the non-profit Institute for Energy Research shows
that the concerns about the power grids capacity to withstand the loss
of electric power generation are real. If the EPA rules go into
effect, they will eliminate enough electricity generating capacity to
provide power to 44.7 million homes.

The Daily Caller quotes Tom Pyle, President of IER as worrying, “These
shutdowns will send electricity prices through the roof—inflicting the
most harm on the elderly, the poor, those on fixed incomes, businesses,
families, schools, and hospitals.”

Pyle said. “These shutdowns also threaten the reliability of our grid and will cost thousands of Americans their jobs.”

With Senator Mitch McConnell from the coal producing state of Kentucky
set to take the reins of the Senate in January, it is becoming
increasingly likely that a showdown is looming over the climate change
motivated rules issued by the EPA. After winning a hard fought
victory by touting his record of fighting for coal and the jobs it
brings to his state, it is almost guaranteed that protecting the
electric power grid from this little known overreaching Obama regulation
will become one of the first flash points in the weeks ahead.

Even if carpooling, bicycling, tree-planting Americans managed to
reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions to zero, that still wouldn’t be
enough to counteract emissions coming from China and the rest of the
world, Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday.

In a speech focusing on U.S.-China relations, Kerry stressed the
importance of the world’s two largest economies and greenhouse gas (GHG)
emitters working together to confront climate change, saying neither
the U.S. nor China could “solve this problem” alone.

“Even if every single American biked to work or carpooled to school or
used only solar panels to power their homes – if we reduced our
emissions to zero, if we planted each of us in America a dozen trees, if
we somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions,
guess what?” he said.

“That still wouldn’t be enough to counteract the carbon pollution coming from China and the rest of the world.”

“And the same would be true for China if they reduced everything and we
continued,” Kerry said. “We would wipe out their gains; they would wipe
out our gains. Because today, if even one or two major economies
neglects to respond to this threat, it will erase the good work done
everywhere else.”

In the speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies, Kerry pointed to the latest U.N-backed Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) report, calling it “another wakeup call to
everybody.”

The report released Sunday warned of “severe, pervasive and irreversible
impacts for people and ecosystems,” if action is not taken to reduce
GHGs globally – with a target of zero by 2100.

The IPCC also, for the first time, said the use of fossil fuels will
need to be “phased out almost entirely” by the end of the century.

“The science could not be clearer,” Kerry said. “Our planet is warming
and it is warming due to our actions, human input. And the damage is
already visible, and it is visible at a faster and greater rate than
scientists predicted. That’s why there’s cause for alarm, because
everything that they predicted is happening, but happening faster and
happening to a greater degree.”

A major U.N. climate conference scheduled for November 2015 in Paris,
France aims to deliver a universal agreement for the post-2020 period on
reducing GHG emissions and mitigating climate change. A lead-up
conference will be held in Lima, Peru next month.

Kerry expressed hope that the U.S. and China could together set an example for other countries to follow.

“Next year, countries are supposed to come forward with their stated
[emission-reduction] goals. And we hope that the partnership between
China and the United States can help set an example for global
leadership and for the seriousness of purpose on those targets and on
the negotiations overall,” he said.

“If the two countries that together are nearing 50 percent of all the
emissions in the world, which happen to be also the two largest
economies in the world, if they can come together and show seriousness
of purpose, imagine what the impact could be on the rest of the world.”

Kerry and Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi last year launched a
U.S.-China working group on climate change. Projects have been launched
or agreements reached on carbon capture, utilization and storage,
vehicle fuel efficiency, GHG emission standards and a climate and
forests initiative, among others.

Cristina Fernandez, president of Argentina, is the sort of populist political leader financial markets love to hate.

For business interests and the media, she has become an archetypal
villain, a symbol of everything that has gone wrong with the country's
economy over the last century.

Extreme political polarisation, serial defaults, devaluations,
hyper-inflation and expropriations of foreign property, culminating in
the nationalisation of oil company YPF in 2012 and a standoff with the
U.S. courts over unpaid foreign debts in 2014 - Argentina's economic
dysfunction is legendary.

The country remains frozen out of foreign debt markets while its lawyers
argue about how to pay restructured bond holders without also paying
investors who refused to participate in the restructuring.

The federal government enforces strict controls on imports as well as
the export of capital and earnings to protect Argentina's meagre foreign
exchange reserves.

Relations between the government and much of the business community and
foreign investors can best be described as confrontational.

In the energy sector, oil and gas production has stagnated over the past
two decades as consumption has grown, adding to pressure on the balance
of payments.

Oil output has been falling, from a peak of more than 900,000 barrels
per day in 1998 to a little over 700,000 bpd in 2013, and Argentina
became a net petroleum importer in 2012.

In the foothills of the Andes, however, the country has world-class
shale resources in the Neuquen Basin's Vaca Muerta (Dead Cow) and Los
Molles formations.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates Argentina has the
world's fourth-largest technically recoverable shale oil resources at
around 27 billion barrels, putting it behind only Russia, the United
States and China.

The government recently updated the energy laws to ease exchange
controls for investors in the oil and gas sector, harmonise treatment
across provinces and provide more favourable fiscal terms.

Many observers remain sceptical, however, about whether shale can be
successfully developed without a fundamental change in the business
climate.

"Flogging a Dead Cow" was the headline of an article that appeared in
the Economist magazine in July 2013, typical of the attitude of the
international media.

But there is another side to the story, which suggests Argentina could
be one of the first large shale plays outside the United States
("Flirting with default, Argentina enjoys drilling boom" July 21).

Follow the Drilling

There are more rigs drilling for oil and gas in the country than at any
time in the last 30 years, according to oilfield services company Baker
Hughes. With over 100 rigs operating in September, the number of rigs
has doubled since 2009. (http://link.reuters.com/jew33w)

There is more drilling activity in Argentina than anywhere else except
the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and India.

In 2013, U.S. oil major Chevron signed a deal with YPF on a drilling programme across 5,000 acres in the Neuquen Basin.

In total, they drilled 109 wells in 2013, and the drilling plan includes a further 140 wells in 2014, according to Chevron.

In a conference call with investors on Aug. 1, the company disclosed it
had 19 active rigs in the first half of the year and had already drilled
89 wells.

"Chevron is pleased with our initial results in the Vaca Muerta,"
Chevron's exploration chief told analysts. "Drilling results have
identified two sweet spots where we are focusing our activity. In one of
these areas we have commenced a horizontal (drilling) programme."

He continued, "We have seen a production uptick, which gives us
confidence that we will deliver the growth we anticipated when we
entered this play."

Other smaller North American exploration and production companies also have active drilling programmes in the Vaca Muerta.

Of course, all these exploration and production companies are very
bullish about the play's future. But it would be a mistake to write off
their enthusiasm entirely.

Vaca Muerta has made faster progress than other shale plays in Poland and China.

World Class Resource
The play remains speculative from a regulatory and political
perspective. But the geology is favourable (with hundreds of feet of
thick organic-rich marine shale). Neuquen has a long history of
conventional production as well as existing pipelines to Buenos Aires.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

7 November, 2014

National Academy of Sciences wants us to stop breathing

National Academy of Sciences Panel: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Have to Drop to Zero

Panelists at a National Academy of Sciences event on the health risks to
humans posed by climate change called Tuesday for an end to all
greenhouse gas emissions.

“[E]missions have to go to zero,” said Anthony Janetos, professor of
Earth and Environment at Boston University, told the event in Washington
D.C., which brought together climate change modelers, public health
experts, and environmental health researchers.

The workshop’s agenda stated that human health and wellbeing are at risk
as a result of the effects of climate change, including heatwaves,
other extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and ocean
acidification.

“Moreover, these risks occur against a backdrop of changing
socioeconomic conditions, medical technology, population demographics,
health status, environmental conditions, and other factors important for
determining health effects.”

According to an NAS study, “most scientists agree that the warming in recent decades [What warming?]
has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the
amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases, such as
carbon dioxide, have increased significantly since the Industrial
Revolution, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels for energy,
industrial processes, and transportation. Carbon dioxide levels are at
their highest in at least 650,000 years and continue to rise.”

Panelists claimed that in order to stabilize atmospheric conditions, greenhouse gas emissions would have to drop to zero.

“I think there is a systematic underestimation of how big a problem this
really is,” said Janetos. “It’s not like it’s news to the research
community that if you are trying to stabilize atmospheric concentrations
of greenhouse gases that emissions have to go to zero.”

“There is a lot of discussion that 2100 is just so far away,” said
panelist Kristie Ebi, professor in the Department of Global Health at
the University of Washington. “But anyone who is young enough to have
young children – and some of the people on the panel are young enough to
have young children; anybody who is old enough to have grandchildren –
life expectancy in most of the developing world is around 85 – those
children will be alive in 2100. It is not that far away.”

“We need to help move understanding that the temporal scale is short,”
said Ebi. “Those of us who have been working in this field a long
time are facing impacts we thought would not occur in our lifetimes, or
if they did it wouldn’t be until much later in our lifetimes.”

“And we’re already seeing impacts that were originally projected in
2050,” she added. “And children and grandchildren born now are going to
be seeing the consequences of the actions that are taken.”

“One of the questions I have is, if you are thinking about mitigation
and the target in terms of climate change we have, maybe everything
depends on what happens in 2100 and beyond,” he said.

“If you want to keep the temperature at a certain level, it means that
over the long term you need to achieve zero CO2 emission,” said
Hallegatte. “And this would then drive everything else in terms of
policies. If you agree that the end goal is zero emission of CO2.”

President Barack Obama had hoped to make addressing climate change and
the transformation of the U.S. energy generation system one of the chief
legacies of his administration. The Republican takeover in the Senate
and the increased Republican majority in the House of Representatives
will likely stymie the president's efforts to impose various forms of
energy rationing.

Keystone Pipeline: No less than three environmental reviews have found
that this pipeline that would transport nearly 1 million barrels per day
of Canadian oilsands crude to the Gulf Coast for refining is adequately
safe. In a perfect example of cowardly political calculation, the
president has been afraid to nix the project because it would alienate
the crucial union voting bloc. Now both the House and the Senate will
pass legislation approving the pipeline which the president may well
veto. Who's causing gridlock now?

U.N. Climate Change negotiations: The nations of the world are supposed
to adopt a binding treaty limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases at
the 2015 U.N. climate change conference in Paris. The president has long
recognized that there was no way that such a treaty would obtain the
required two-thirds vote of the Senate for ratification. Instead, the
president has devised a plan in which a U.S. pledge to cut its
greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83
percent by 2050 would be tacked onto the existing U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate Change. The president argues that such pledges do
not need further ratification by the U.S. Senate. The new Republican
majority will beg to differ.

EPA's Plan to Cut Electric Power Carbon Dioxide emissions: In June, the
Obama administration proposed regulations that aim to cut carbon dioxide
emissions from the nation’s power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by
2030. The Republicans denounced this as Obama's War on Coal. The
election of Shelley Moore Capito as the first Republican senator from
West Virginia in nearly 55 years suggests that the war is not going so
well for the president; not to mention the re-election of Mitch
McConnell from Kentucky.

Environmentalist PAC Spending: Billionaire Tom Steyer's NextGen Climate
PAC reportedly spent $74 million attacking Republicans he regards as
climate change "deniers." The National Journal succinctly notes, "He
Didn't Get Much to Show For It." The New Republic grouses that the
voters have made "climate change denier" Sen. James Inhofe "the most
powerful senator on the environment."

The day before the mid-term elections, The Hill reported:

"Nearly half of voters in the midterm election want the federal
government to adopt more policies to fight climate change, according to a
new poll.

Voters in the Oregon and Colorado were asked to vote on ballot
initiatives that would require many foods made with ingredients derived
from modern biotech crops to be labeled as such. Science won in Colorado
with voters rejecting the mandatory labeling requirement by 68 to 32
percent. The Oregon vote is still too close to call, but the vote was
now around 51 percent against labeling and 49 percent in favor. The
final results in Oregon may not be known until Friday.

Both initiatives are egregiously unscientific, but the Oregon Measure 92
is particularly dishonest. Measure 92 misleadingly asserts that the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration...

"...does not require or conduct safety studies of genetically engineered
foods. Instead, any safety consultations are voluntary, and genetically
engineered food developers may decide what information to provide to
the agency. Market approval of genetically engineered food is based on
industry research alone."

Of course, this is precisely the way in which new pharmaceuticals are
regulated and approved. Companies keep providing information about each
new crop variety to the FDA regulators until they have no more
questions. In any case, this process is unnecessary. If a trait (pest
resistance or herbicide resistance) is safe in one crop it is safe in
all crops. There should be no need for approval for each new variety.

Another false Measure 92 finding and declaration is ...

"The genetic engineering of plants and animals often causes unintended
consequences. Manipulating genes via genetic engineering and inserting
them into organisms is an imprecise process. The results are not always
predictable or controllable. Mixing plant, animal, bacterial and viral
genes through genetic engineering in combinations that cannot occur in
nature may produce results that lead to adverse health or environmental
consequences."

The proponents of Measure 92 offer no examples of "adverse health or
environmental consequences." Why? Because none have been reported. As I
have noted elsewhere:

"The World Health Organization flatly states, “No effects on human
health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by
the general population in the countries where they have been approved.

In 2010, a European Commission review of 50 studies on the safety of
biotech crops found “no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher
risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional
plants and organisms.”

At its annual meeting in June, 2013 the American Medical Association
endorsed a report on the labeling of bioengineered foods from its
Council on Science and Public Health. The report concluded that
“Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and
during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been
reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature.”

And one other bit of misinformation is the claim that ...

"The cultivation of genetically engineered crops can have serious
effects on the environment. For example, in 2013, 93 percent of all soy
grown in the U.S. was engineered to be herbicide resistance. In fact,
the vast majority of genetically engineered crops are designed to
withstand herbicides, and therefore promote indiscriminate herbicide
use. As a result, genetically engineered, herbicide resistant crops have
caused 527 million pounds of additional herbicides to be applied to the
nation's farmland."

Actually, the USDA released in May, 2014 its report, Pesticide Use in
U.S. Agriculture: 21 Selected Crops, 1960-2008, in which it analyzed the
trends in herbicide and pesticide use. The study found that herbicide
applications peaked at 478 million pounds in 1981 and since drifted down
to 394 million pounds in 2008, the latest year for which the agency has
figures. Interestingly, Measure 92 fails to mention that pesticide
applications peaked in 1972 at 158 million pounds and has now fallen to
29 million pounds. Why? Because of crops genetically engineered to
resist insect and other pests.

Colorado's Proposition 105 is more succinct in its misleading assertions:

"(3) U.S. FEDERAL LAW DOES NOT PROVIDE FOR THE REGULATION ON THE SAFETY AND LABELING OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD;

(4) THE LONG TERM HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF
GROWING AND CONSUMING GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD ARE NOT YET FULLY
RESEARCHED AND ARE NOT YET WELL UNDERSTOOD BY SCIENCE ...."

Measure 92 would require that "Genetically Engineered" clearly and
conspicuously appear on the front or back of the package of foods using
ingredients from biotech crops by January, 2016. Similarly, Proposition
105 would mandate "PRODUCED WITH GENETIC ENGINEERING" APPEAR IN A CLEAR
AND CONSPICUOUS MANNER ON ITS LABEL" by July, 2016.

Addendum: A referendnum in Maui County in Hawaii passed 50 to 48 percent
to ban the growing of biotech crops in the jurisdiction. For more
background on the scientifically idiotic campaign against biotech crops
in Hawaii see my article, "The Fable of Hawaiian Frankencorn."

Researchers from Northeastern University's Marine Science Center and the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found that moderate
ocean acidification and warming can actually enhance the growth rate of
one reef-building coral species. Only under extreme acidification and
thermal conditions did calcification decline.

Their work, which was published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, is the first to show that some corals may benefit from moderate ocean acidification.

The authors attribute the coral's positive response to moderately
elevated carbon dioxide to the fertilization of photosynthesis within
the coral's algal symbionts, which may provide the coral with more
energy for calcification even though the seawater is more acidic. They
propose that the eventual decline in coral calcification at the very
high levels of carbon dioxide occurs when the beneficial effects of
fertilizing photosynthesis are outweighed by the negative effects of
acidification on the skeleton-forming process.

"The study showed that this species of coral (Siderastrea siderea)
exhibited a peaked or parabolic response to both warming and
acidification, that is, moderate acidification and warming actually
enhanced coral calcification, with only extreme warming and
acidification negatively impacting the corals," Ries said. "This was
surprising given that most studies have shown that corals exhibit a more
negative response to even moderate acidification."

Furthermore, their work indicates that ocean warming is likely to
threaten this coral species more than acidification by the end of the
century, based on projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.

He noted that in the past 200 years, ocean pH level has dropped from 8.2
to 8.1 and is expected to fall even further to about 7.8 over the next
one or two centuries. That is a significant decrease over a relatively
short period of time, Ries said, when looking at the geologic history of
ocean acidification.

"The amount of change that would typically occur in about 10 million
years is being condensed into a 300-year period," Ries said. "It's not
the just the magnitude of the change that matters to the organisms, but
how quickly it is occurring."

"Acidification of the surrounding seawater is certainly important for
marine organisms, but what is equally as important—perhaps even more
important—is how the chemistry of their internal calcifying fluid
responds to these changes in seawater chemistry," Ries said.

This particular post is triggered by today’s release of the IPCC AR5
Synthesis Report and Press Release and Press Conference. A good
summary of what has been going on is given by this BBC article Fossil
fuels should be phased out by 2100 says IPCC. The highlights:

CO2 emissions must be reducedby almost half by 2030 or global temperatures will eventually rise by between 2C and 5C.

Humans must pump no more than a further one trillion tonnes of CO2 into
the atmosphere if temperature change is to be kept below 2C.
To keep warming below 2°C, the world will have to cut greenhouse gas
emissions between 40 and 70 percent by 2050—and then keep cutting until
they’re essentially zero by 2100.

Tweeted comments from Ban-Ki Moon’s press conference:

“Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side.”

“When your child is sick with a high temperature, you have to take all the medicine”

Lets accept for the sake of argument that there is a risk that adding
CO2 will eventually cause undesirable climate change. Further,
there seems to be broad agreement that it is in everyone’s long term
interests to move away from fossil fuels as a primary energy source
(these resources are finite, at some point they will become very costly
to extract, and there are pollution/health issues associated with
burning fossil fuels).

But how urgently do we need to act in terms decarbonization, even if you
buy the 2C danger limit? The 16 year deadline comes from the
business as usual emissions scenario, whereby climate model projections
state that the 2C threshold would likely be crossed in 2040.

Here is why it is increasingly unlikely that that we will reach the 2C danger limit by 2040:

the ongoing surface temperature hiatus, which may continue until the
2030’s or even 2040 if the increasing number of hypotheses about AMO,
PDO and natural internal variability are correct.

So how much do these factors individually and collectively delay the
warming, beyond 2040? Well, the hiatus one is pretty
straightforward. It has been estimated that Lewis and Curry
TCR estimate delays the warming by 10 yrs. No estimate that I‘ve
seen re delays associated with carbon budget scenarios.

What does 10 years buy us?

For the sake of argument, lets play it conservative and assume that
these factors buy us 10 more years (personally, I think much longer),
beyond the IPCC’s time scale. What difference does 10 years make?

Lets look back 10 years ago, to 2004, or even to 2006 when Hansen made his first proclamation:

fracking wasn’t on the radar screen

there was very little penetration of wind and solar power

there was optimism about cap and trade policies

the pause was less than 10 years, and not yet identified as such

the U.S. was the leader in CO2 emissions

the massive Chinese modernization was just underway

devastating hurricane landfalls in the US in 2004/2005
others?

Things look pretty different now than they did 10 years ago. What can we anticipate in the next 10 years?

the pause will continue, or surface temperatures will resume
warming. If the latter, then climate models are demonstrated to be
not fit for purpose for projecting 21st century climate change and
climate sensitivity, and the IPCC’s attribution conclusion will become
unsupportable.

greater clarity on the role of the sun in 20th and 21st century climate variations and change

longer historical perspectives on sea ice, ocean temperatures, etc. and
refinements to paleo climate analyses of the last two millennia, which
will clarify detection of anthropogenic climate change relative to
natural variability

continued growth in emissions, particularly from the developing world

continued strains on food and water associated with growing populations,
unless effective plans for dealing with this are implemented

growing vulnerability to extreme weather events associated with
population and property increases in hazard-prone zones, unless
effective plans for dealing with this are implemented

new advances in energy technologies

continued regional experiments with new and renewable energy technologies

others?

Business as usual, or implement UNFCCC policies?

As described above, business as usual on decadal time scales can be
associated with unanticipated surprises – science, technologies, and
societal changes. Should we let economic development and other
policies play out, perhaps with some climate informed decision analysis,
or implement the UNFCCC policies and drastically decarbonize the
economy?

Well 10 years (or even 5 years) will provide substantial clarity on the
relative importance of human-caused and naturally varying climate
change, and how rapidly humans can be expected to change the climate in
the 21st century.

The solutions to decarbonizing the global economy are more likely to
come from technological advances rather than from global UNFCCC
treaties. Does it make any sense to push the decarbonization
policies faster than they can be supported by technology?

The UN seems to be playing a game, which is aptly described from this tweet by Rupert Darwell:

There’s one thing you will never hear #ippc say:”It’s now too late to act.” That way, IPCC can live on forever.

Focus on stopping global warming and extreme weather is unscientific and immoral

“IPCC Chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri was right to advocate “a global
agreement to finally reverse course on climate change” when he spoke to
delegates tasked with approving the IPCC Synthesis Report, released
today," said Tom Harris, executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC).

“The new direction governments should follow must be one in which the
known needs of people suffering today are given priority over problems
that might someday be faced by those yet to be born.”

“Yet, exactly the opposite is happening,” continued Harris. “Of the
roughly one billion U.S. dollars spent every day across the world on
climate finance, only 6% of it is devoted to helping people adapt to
climate change in the present. The rest is wasted trying to stop
improbable future climatic events. That is immoral.”

ICSC chief science advisor, Professor Bob Carter, former Head of the
Department of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in Australia and
author of Taxing Air explained, “Science has yet to provide unambiguous
evidence that problematic, or even measurable, human-caused global
warming is occurring. The hypothesis of dangerous man-made climate
change is based solely on computerized models that have repeatedly
failed in practice in the real world.”

New Zealand-based Terry Dunleavy, ICSC founding chairman and strategic
advisor remarked, “U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon often makes
unjustified statements about climate change and extreme weather.
However, in their still unanswered November 29, 2012 open letter to the
Secretary General, 134 scientists from across the world asserted, ‘The
U.K. Met Office recently released data showing that there has been no
statistically significant global warming for almost 16 [now 18] years.
During this period…carbon dioxide concentrations rose by nearly 9%…The
NOAA “State of the Climate in 2008” report asserted that 15 years or
more without any statistically-significant warming would indicate a
discrepancy between observation and prediction. Sixteen years without
warming have therefore now proven that the models are wrong by their
creators’ own criterion.”

“Although today’s climate and extreme weather are well within the bounds
of natural variability and the intensity and magnitude of extreme
events is not increasing, there is, most definitely, a climate problem,”
said Carter. “Natural climate change brings with it very real human and
environmental costs. Therefore, we must carefully prepare for and adapt
to climate hazards as and when they happen. Spending billions of
dollars on expensive and ineffectual carbon dioxide controls in a futile
attempt to stop natural climate change impoverishes societies and
reduces our capacity to address these and other real world problems.”

“The heavily referenced reports of the Nongovernmental International
Panel on Climate Change demonstrate that, scientifically speaking, the
global warming scare is over,” concluded Harris. “It is time to defund
the IPCC and dedicate our resources to helping solve today’s genuine
humanitarian problems.”
The ICSC is a non-partisan group of scientists, economists and energy
and policy experts who are working to promote better understanding of
climate science and related policy worldwide. We aim to help create an
environment in which a more rational, open discussion about climate
issues emerges, thereby moving the debate away from implementation of
costly and ineffectual “climate control” measures. Instead, ICSC
encourages effective planning for, and adaptation to, inevitable natural
climate variability, and continuing scientific research into the causes
and impacts of climate change.

ICSC also focuses on publicizing the repercussions of misguided plans to
“solve the climate crisis”. This includes, but is not limited to,
“carbon” sequestration as well as the dangerous impacts of attempts to
replace conventional energy supplies with wind turbines, solar power,
most biofuels and other ineffective and expensive energy sources.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

6 November, 2014

The biggest loser in this election was the climate scare

In the run-up to the 2014 midterms, a lot of green groups had been
hoping that this would finally be the US election in which climate
change was a defining issue.

You had liberal billionaire Tom Steyer spending $57 million from his own
pocket trying to convince voters to care about global warming. You had
the League of Conservation Voters pouring in another $25 million, more
than it had in the past two elections combined. All the while, media
outlets suggested that natural disasters — from Superstorm Sandy two
years ago to the ongoing drought in the West — might push climate issues
to the fore.

Ultimately, none of it really mattered. Congress' indifference to climate change issues will remain as solid as it's ever been.

Sure, there are small shifts in attitude here and there. Many Republican
candidates now appear to think it's unviable to dismiss outright the
basic facts of climate change. Instead, they just say "I'm not a
scientist" when asked. (Overt climate denial, it seems, no longer polls
well.) But that's one of the few signs anything has shifted. Climate
change remains a low-priority issue — it ranked a lowly 8th (out of 11)
on the list of issues voters care about in this Pew poll.

Congress' indifference is a huge problem for climate policy

In the very, very short term, this won't affect climate policy much. The
main action in Washington over the next few years will happen inside
the Environmental Protection Agency, which is crafting rules to cut
carbon-dioxide emissions from existing power plants between now and
2030. These regulations don't require congressional approval (they're
being done under the existing Clean Air Act), and Obama will likely veto
any attempts by Republicans to block them.

But the fact that global warming continues to be a non-issue will be a
massive problem for future climate policy. The most recent report from
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global
emissions would have to fall a staggering 42 to 71 percent below 2010
levels by mid-century if we wanted to fend off the worst impacts of
global warming and prevent average temperatures rising more than 2°C (or
3.6°F). That's already incredibly difficult. But it gets harder and
more expensive the longer we delay.

Obviously the United States can't solve climate change entirely on its
own. China, India, Europe, and a whole bunch of other countries would
also have to get on board. But as one of the world's largest emitters,
the US would certainly have to make sweeping cuts of its own to help
meet that goal — cuts that are far, far greater than the EPA is
contemplating. According to the IPCC, we'd have to triple or quadruple
the amount of low-carbon energy we use by mid-century and get radically
more efficient in the way we use energy.

Only Congress can make the sort of truly sweeping policy changes that
experts say will likely prove necessary — through things like pricing
carbon or providing incentives for cleaner energy. And, in all
likelihood, Congress would need to set those policies soon in order to
make the transition as smooth as possible. Even though US greenhouse-gas
emissions fell between 2005 and 2012, they're now slowly starting to
rise again.

Without a major global shift on climate policy, the IPCC was clear on
what would happen. The world is currently on pace to heat up between
3.7°C and 4.8°C by the end of the century. (That's 6.6°F and 8.6°F.)
That much heat would bring with it all sorts of "irreversible" impacts,
raising the risk of drastic sea level rises, crop failures, the flooding
of major cities, mass extinctions. Some scientists now warn that these
sorts a world that hot may not be "able to support society as we
currently know it."

The basic message of the IPCC report is that countries need to get
moving today if they want to avoid the planet from heating up
dramatically. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. And certainly not five
years from now. But the basic message of this election is that Congress
isn't going to give much thought to climate change these next two years.
Maybe not the two years after that. And it doesn't seem to be in the
power of either committed billionaires or Mother Nature to get them to
do so.

Greenie fail: They spent big to get people to Vote On Global Warming Issues

Greens took to social media to convince followers to get out to the
polls Tuesday with some using the hashtag #climatevoter in an attempt to
make their message go viral.

Environmental groups have spent at least $85 million this election,
according to the Washington Post’s Chris Mooney. Most of that money has
come from one man — San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer.

Steyer’s activist group NextGen Climate Action has spent a whopping $57
million on election activities, including media blitzes, backing
Democratic candidates and promoting global warming policies this cycle.
Steyer’s money has made environmental groups a major funding force this
election.

The League of Conservation Voters has also unleashed a torrent of
funding this election cycle, spending $30 million to help keep Democrats
in office and push environmental policies.

LCV dedicated $19 million in election funding to federal races,
including backing Democrats in tough races. The group has even backed
Democrats like Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Sen. Mark Begich of
Alaska, who support the Keystone XL pipeline and oil and natural gas
drilling.

NextGen and LCV together spent $87 million this election cycle alone.
This is just the tip of the iceberg since there are other major
environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources
Defense Council that have also ponied up this election.

The problem all of these groups face is that voters give fighting global
warming a very low priority despite maybe even agreeing that warming is
an issue that needs to be addressed.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its
latest report on the earth’s climate Sunday, and it reaffirms what
climate alarmists have been yammering for years. Chicken Little has
nothing on these guys.

“Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and
long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system,” the
report states, “increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and
irreversible impacts.” The report notes that governments now face the
question of whether they can act to slow global warming to a pace at
which humans and ecosystems can adapt, or risk “abrupt and irreversible
changes” to the planet.

The report is the final piece of work in five years of assessments by
thousands of scientists, and it is meant to offer a framework of data
for world leaders to work with when they meet in 2015 to debate an
international climate treaty. There have been a number of these
five-year assessments since the 1990s, but this latest one contains the
direst of predictions.

The IPCC concludes with 95% certainty that global warming is a man-made
phenomenon, and the warming trend seen on land and in the oceans since
the 1950s is “unequivocal.” According to IPCC research, each of the last
three decades have been successively warmer, with the period from 1983
to 2012 likely being the warmest 30-year period in the Northern
Hemisphere in the last 1,400 years. This would be an alarming piece of
news except for the fact that the report admits this 1,400-year
assessment is merely theoretical.

There have been previous theories about the sources and dangers of
global warming. Rational scientists – the ones conveniently labeled
“deniers” by ecofascists – have frequently questioned the methods by
which the IPCC and its associated scientists collect their data. There
was the famous “hockey stick” debate of 2003, when statisticians proved
that the data behind the theory of steeply rising global temperatures
was fundamentally flawed. And let’s not forget Climategate, the 2009
scandal in which the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit
was caught fudging its climate data in an effort to prove the dire
consequences of man-made global warming.

The IPCC remains undeterred in its mission, and inconvenient truths
won’t get in its way. For instance, 18 years in which we have seen no
warming accompanied by yet another record extent in Antarctic sea ice is
considered temporary and due to “natural variability.” The IPCC report
calls this trend merely a pause: “Trends based on short records are very
sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect
long-term climate trends.”

So an 18-year block within the time period from 1950 to 2014 is a short
record without scientific meaning, but the IPCC bases its “settled
science” on a 64-year block (1950-2014) within a 1,400-year period –
that is admittedly theoretical – and we’re just supposed to accept that
as fact.

The IPCC points out that it does not have the power to make policy, but
it’s surely going to do everything it can to help shape whatever policy
governments will make when they gather in Paris next year. The report
claims a global temperature rise greater than 2°C would be catastrophic.
If that threshold is crossed, the damage caused by global warming would
be irreversible – even if all fossil-fuel use were to end tomorrow. By
the way, that 2°C threshold was developed in 2009 and is relative to the
1861-1880 baseline for global temperature. There seems to be no
explanation why this statistically short record is now gospel as opposed
to any other 20-year span prior to the mass production of the
automobile.

In any event, if this seemingly arbitrary 2°C threshold is to be
maintained, carbon emissions need to be brought to near zero by 2100.
“It’s not too late,” says Gary Yohe, a professor from Wesleyan
University who contributed to the report. “But the longer you wait, the
more expensive it gets.” It’s never too late for these folks.

Just how expensive will it be? The report is evasive: “These impact
estimates are incomplete and depend on a large number of assumptions,
many of which are disputable. … As a result, mitigation cost and climate
damage estimates at any given temperature level cannot be compared to
evaluate the costs and benefits of mitigation.” That’s a convenient way
to avoid the hot seat for something that would drastically reduce global
GDP over the next 85 years.

Ronald Bailey of Reason Magazine boils it down: “One way to think of
this is that people today making an average global per capita income of
just under $10,000 per year are being asked to sacrifice economic growth
and development for people whose incomes will likely be over $61,000
per year in 2100.”

While the IPCC admits there are disputable elements and that it cannot
determine just what the economic impact of its proposals would be, it
argues we should unquestioningly accept its final conclusion.

The IPCC and its climate alarmist cohorts are asking the world to put
the brakes on economic development based on information that is still
very much up for debate. But never mind that, they say, the “Science™ is
settled.”

It is doubtful that most Americans and others around the world know how
vast the organizational structure of the environmental movement is and
how much wealth it generates for those engaged in an agenda that would
drag humanity back to the Stone Age.

If that sounds extreme, consider a world without access to and use of
energy or any of the technological and scientific advances that have
extended and enhanced our lives, from pesticides that kill insect and
rodent disease vectors to genetically modified seeds that yield greater
crop volumes.

Two of my colleagues in the effort to get the truth out are Paul
Driessen and Ron Arnold, both of whom are affiliated with a free market
think tank, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, CFACT, They have
done the research necessary to expose the wealth and the power structure
of the environmental movement. They have joined together to write
“Cracking Big Green: To Save the World from the Save-the-Earth Money
Machine.” ($4.99, available from Amazon.com)

The Greens are forever claiming that anyone who disputes their lies is
receiving money from big energy companies, but my experience is that it
is think tanks like CFACT, small by any comparison with any major
environmental organization, that support the search for the truth and
its dissemination.

“Big Green” was formerly known as the Iron Triangle, “a mutually
supportive relationship between power elites,” so-named by Mark
Tapscott, the Washington Examiner’s executive editor. It consisted of
“government agencies, special interest lobbying organizations, and
legislators with jurisdiction over their interests.” Today, it includes
major environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Natural
Resources Defense Council. To these add wealthy foundations and
corporations that fund them.

It will no doubt astound many readers to learn that there are more than
26,500 American environmental groups. They collected total revenues of
more than $81 billion from 2000 to 2012, according to Giving USA
Institute, with only a small part of that coming from membership dues
and individual contributions.

“Cracking Big Green” examined the Internal Revenue Service Form 990
reports of non-profit organizations. Driessen and Arnold discovered
that, among the 2012 incomes of better-known environmental groups, the
Sierra Club took in $97,757,678 and its Foundation took in $47,163,599.
The Environmental Defense Fund listed $111,915,138 in earnings, the
Natural Resources Defense Council took in $98,701,707 and the National
Audubon Society took in $96,206,883. These four groups accounted for
more than $353 million in one year.

That pays for a lot of lobbying at the state and federal level. It pays
for a lot of propaganda that the Earth needs saving because of global
warming or climate change. Now add in Greenpeace USA at $32,791,149, the
Greenpeace Fund at $12,878,777; the National Wildlife Federation at
$84,725,518; the National Parks Conservation Association at $25,782,975;
and The Wilderness Society at $24,862,909. Al Gore’s Alliance for
Climate Protection took in $19,150,215. That’s a lot of money to protect
something that cannot be “protected,” but small in comparison to other
Green organizations.

“If that sounds too intimidating to confront,” say Driessen and Arnold,
“it gets worse. Our research found a truly shocking blind spot; many
major environmental groups get nearly half their revenue from private
foundations like the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, and Wal-Mart’s Walton Family Foundation. Just the top 50
foundation donors (out of 81,777) gave green groups $812,639,999 (2010
figures), according to the Foundation Center’s vast database.”

If you wonder why you have been hearing and reading endless doomsday
scenarios about the warming of the Earth, the rise of the seas, and the
disappearance of species and forests, for decades, the reason is that a
huge propaganda machine is financed at levels that are mind boggling.

Allied with politicians in high places, Big Green can count on them to
maintain the lies. When the Earth ceased to warming nineteen years ago,
it changed its doomsday campaign to “climate change,” but the objective
is the same: keep people so scared they will accept all manner of
restrictions on their lives, at the same time the availability of the
energy on which they depend is reduced by a “war on coal” and other
measures to keep oil and natural gas in the ground where it cannot be
used.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the
failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” said
President Obama on January 21, 2013, in his second inaugural address.
“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can
avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and
powerful storms.”

This may appeal to those who do not or cannot examine these claims, but
the reality is that the climate is always in a state of change, is
largely determined by the Sun and other factors such as the oceans and
volcanic activity. Humans play virtually no role whatever and Big
Green’s Big Lie, that carbon dioxide (C02) emissions influence the
weather and/or the climate, has long been disproved and debunked. The
problem is that that the news and other media continue to tell the Big
Lie.

For Big Green, science is not about irrefutable truth. It is an instrument of propaganda to be distorted to advance their lies.

The impact on their lives and on our economy can be seen in “higher
energy bills, disappearing jobs, diminished family incomes, and fewer
opportunities for better living standards for their children,” all
factors that played into the outcome of the recent midterm
elections.

For a short, powerful insight to Big Green power and agenda, I heartily recommend you read “Cracking Big Green.”

Via email

More of that global warming hits America

After a weekend with record cold and snow, more waves of cold air and
snow are on the way through the middle of November from the Midwest to
the East.

A storm last weekend produced the earliest snowfall on record in
Columbia, South Carolina, on Saturday. Freezing temperatures settled
over much of the South and, when combined with the snow in the southern
Appalachians, allowed some ski resorts to open early.

Snow buried part of New England later in the weekend, as the same storm pushed off the coast, turned northward and ramped up.

Another shot of cold air will follow a fast-moving storm forecast to
sweep from the Midwest to the East during the second half of the week.

The new storm later this week will not be as strong as the system that
hit the Midwest and East this past weekend. However, it will bring
spotty rain and snow to parts of the northern Plains Wednesday then the
Great Lakes on Thursday.

Denmark should ban coal use by 2025 to make the Nordic nation a leader
in fighting global warming, adding to green measures ranging from wind
energy to bicycle power, Denmark's climate minister said on Saturday.

Denmark has already taken big steps to break reliance on high-polluting
coal - wind turbines are set to generate more than half of all
electricity by 2020 and 41 percent of people in Copenhagen cycle to work
or school, higher than in Amsterdam.

"The cost (of phasing out coal) would not be significant," Climate,
Energy and Building Minister Helveg Petersen told Reuters of a proposal
he made this week to bring forward a planned phase-out of all coal use
to 2025 from 2030.

His ministry is studying details of how it would work before unveiling a
formal plan. Denmark imports about 6 million tonnes a year of coal on
world markets, currently from Russia, so a ban would coincidentally cut
dependence on Moscow for energy.

The Danish Energy Association, representing energy firms, said a faster
phase-out of coal would bring risks that wind turbines could not meet
demand on calm days. Coal now generates about a third of Danish
electricity.

"There will be a bill to pay," said Anders Stouge, deputy head of the
association. Petersen said that some coal-fired plants could shift to
burning wood as a backup.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

Green groups have been unhelpfully “alarmist” in making the case for
tackling global warming - but the world now needs to take urgent and
radical action if it wants to prevent dangerous climate change, leading
UN scientists have said.

Some claims that non-governmental organisations have made about climate
change “have undoubtedly been exaggerated”, Professor Myles Allen, one
of the lead authors of a major new report from the UN’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.

“NGOs have at times been alarmist over climate change… but the IPCC has
been very clear and measured throughout. I think alarmism on any issue
is unhelpful.”

He suggested the alarmism had resulted in the general public getting the wrong impression about what climate change entailed.

“People think climate change is just all about melting icecaps and the
Arctic, the reality is climate change is about the weather changing in
many parts of the world including where many people live,” he said.

Prof Allen was speaking after the IPCC unveiled a major report warning
that time is running out to prevent "irreversible and dangerous impacts"
of climate change.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said the report showed “massive
and urgent and immediate action” was required to cut greenhouse gas
emissions to prevent warming of more than 2C above pre-industrial
levels, the threshold regarded as dangerous.

To achieve this, global emissions must fall by at least 40 per cent by
2050 from 2010 levels, and be cut to zero – or even “negative” - by the
end of the century. Negative emissions could entail huge programmes of
planting forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Failure to take further action to limit greenhouse gas emissions will be
more likely than not to result in warming of more than 4C above
pre-industrial levels by 2100, the report warns, with “severe and
pervasive” impacts including flooding, dangerous heatwaves, ill health
and violent conflicts.

“The risks associated with temperatures at or above 4C include
substantial species extinction, global and regional food insecurity,
consequential constraints on common human activities, and limited
potential for adaptation in some cases,” the report warns.

Mr Ban said he was “confident” that world leaders could agree a deal to
curb emissions by a crunch summit in Paris late next year – despite
widespread scepticism from many that Governments will be prepared to
take as radical action as the IPCC says is needed.

Cutting emissions to keep warming within 2C would be likely to require
some 80 per cent of the world’s electricity to be generated from
low-carbon sources such as nuclear reactors or wind farms by 2050, up
from about 30 per cent today, the report said.

By 2100 fossil fuel power generation would be “almost entirely phased
out” unless power plants were fitted with ‘carbon capture and storage’
(CCS) technology to bury carbon dioxide emissions in the ground.

Despite fears over the costs of green energy, Mr Ban said it was a
“myth” that tackling climate change would “cost heavily” and said the
IPCC’s reports made clear that “inaction will cost much, much more”.

“Science has spoken, there is no ambiguity in their message. Leaders must act, time is not on our side,” he said.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said there was "little time
before the window of opportunity to stay within 2C of warming closes".
Delaying action until even 2030 would significantly increase the costs
and challenges of preventing dangerous warning, he said.

But he dismissed claims by green groups that the forecasts rendered much
of the world’s oil and gas reserves “unburnable”. “I don’t think one
can translate the findings into fossil fuel assets becoming redundant
because with CCS it is entirely possible that fossil fuels can continue
to be used on a large scale,” he said.

He warned that if the world failed to act then by the end of the century
crop yields would decrease substantially. “Starvation and hunger" would
become “large threats to human society”, he said. “The cost of inaction
will be horrendously higher than the cost of action,” he warned.

Ed Davey, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, said:
“This is the most comprehensive, thorough and robust assessment of
climate change ever produced. It sends a clear message that should be
heard across the world – we must act on climate change now. It’s now up
to the politicians – we must safeguard the world for future generations
by striking a new climate deal in Paris next year.”

Climate change is a problem. But our attempts to fix it could be worse than useless

By Bjorn Lomborg

The UN Climate Panel came out with its final report yesterday. It is a
summary of its 3 main reports, published over the last year. It tells us
that global warming is real and a significant problem. And as usual,
the media hears something else – in the words of Mother Jones magazine,
how future warming will be “ghastly, horrid, awful, shocking, grisly,
gruesome.”

In between the alarmist hype and the reality of climate change we once
again risk losing an opportunity to think smartly about energy and find a
realistic way to fix global warming.

Fossil fuels aren't going anywhere

We need to realise that the world will not come off fossil fuels for
many decades. Globally, we get a minuscule 0.3pc of our energy from
solar and wind. According to the International Energy Agency, even with a
wildly optimistic scenario, we will get just 3.5pc of our energy from
solar and wind in 2035, while paying almost $100 billion in annual
subsidies. Today, the world gets 82pc of its energy from fossil fuels,
in 21 years it will still be more than 79pc.

The simple reason is that cheap and abundant energy is what powers
economic growth. And for now, that means four fifths from fossil fuel,
and much of the rest from water and nuclear. While wind is lower cost in
a few, rural areas, coal is for the most part much cheaper, and
provides power, also when the wind is not blowing.

As the poor half of our world is reaching for a similar development to
that of China, they will also want much, much more power, most of it
powered by coal. Even the climate-worried World Bank president accepts
that "there’s never been a country that has developed with intermittent
power."

Realising that fossil fuels will be here for a long time means stronger
focus on moving from coal to gas, since gas emits about half the
greenhouse gasses. The US shale gas revolution has reduced gas prices
and lead to a significant switch from coal to gas. This has reduced US
CO? emissions to their lowest in 20 years.

In 2012, US shale gas reduced emissions three times more than all the
solar and wind in Europe. At the same time, Europe paid about $40
billion in annual subsidies for solar, while the Americans made more
than $200 billion every year from the shale gas revolution. Gas is
obviously still a fossil fuel and not the final solution, but it can
reduce emissions over the next 10-20 years, especially if the shale
revolution is expanded to China and the rest of the developing world.

Climate change is a problem - but not the biggest the world faces

Poverty, disease, poor sanitation and starvation kill more people than climate change will

While global warming will be a problem, much of the rhetoric is wildly
exaggerated – like when UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon calls it “an
existential challenge for the whole human race.” The IPCC finds that the
total cost of climate change by 2070 is between 0.2pc and 2pc of GDP.
While this is definitely a problem, it is equivalent to less than one
year of recession over the next 60 years.

Global warming pales when compared to many other global problems. While
the WHO estimates 250,000 annual deaths from global warming in 30 years,
4.3 million die right now each year from indoor air pollution, 800
million are starving, and 2.5 billion live in poverty and lack clean
water and sanitation.

When the UN asked 5 million people for their top priorities the answers
were better education and health care, less corruption, more jobs and
affordable food. They placed global warming at the very last spot, as
priority number 17.

Bad 'solutions' can cause more problems than they fix

Growing crops for biofuels has destroyed rainforests and driven up the cost of food

Climate policies can easily cost much more than the global warming
damage will – while helping very little. The German solar adventure,
which has cost taxpayers more than $130 billion, will at the end of the
century just postpone global warming by a trivial 37 hours.

While a low carbon tax in theory could help a little, the political
reality is that climate policies almost everywhere have been
ineffective, done little good while sustaining the most wasteful
technologies. The IPCC warns than less-than-perfect climate policies can
be 2-4 times more expensive. Biofuels, for instance, have driven up
food costs, likely causing an extra 30 million starving, with prospects
of starving another 100 million by 2020. And it is likely that biofuels
cause net increase in CO? emissions, because they force agriculture to
cut down forests elsewhere to grow food.

This is why we have to be careful in pushing for the right policies. For
twenty years, the refrain has been promises to cut CO?, like the Kyoto
Protocol. For twenty years these policies have failed. We should instead
look to climate economics to find smarter solutions.

The fundamental problem is that green energy is too expensive, which is
why it will need billions in subsidies the next two decades. Instead of
making more failed promises to pay ever more subsidies, we should spend
the money on research and development of the next generations of green
energy sources. If we can innovate the price of green energy down below
the cost of fossil fuels, everyone will switch, including China and
India. Economics confirm that for every dollar spent on green R&D,
we will avoid $11 of climate damage.

But this requires us to separate the hype from the real message from
IPCC: global warming is a problem, but unless we fix it smartly, we
won’t fix it at all.

The legendary bank robber Willie Sutton apparently did not say that he
robbed banks “because that’s where the money is,” even though everyone
thinks he did. And, apparently, rich donors also don’t identify issues
that are “where the voters are,” at least in Florida.

Billionaire Tom Steyer has spent $12 million trying to make Floridians
scared of global warming — an issue Gallup recently found ranks dead
last among voter priorities. Other research indicates that the more
people are harangued about it, the more they turn off, making this money
not well spent.

Blame the information age, where people can easily see for themselves
that we are in our 18th year without a global-warming trend. They can
also go the National Climatic Data Center’s website and plot out
Florida’s yearly temperature; there is no overall significant warming
trend in the entire record, which covers 118 years.

A little advance work could have saved a ton of money. The most popular
climate change website in the world, Anthony Watts’s
www.wattsupwiththat.com, now has well over 200 million views. It is
decidedly nonapocalyptic. The most prominent scare site,
RealClimate.org, has a hundred times fewer views.

Watts’s site is run on a shoestring. While some of Steyer’s ads blame
the Koch Brothers for skepticism about the end of the world, Watts has
never seen a dollar of their support — or, for that matter, many dollars
of anyone’s support, as it is mostly run with a tip jar.

Here’s the cool part: According to the model the Environmental
Protection Agency uses to assess the climatic effects of various
policies, if the emissions from the entire state of Florida dropped
immediately to zero, the amount of global warming that would be saved by
the year 2100 would be a grand total of seven thousandths of a degree
Celsius (0.007°C). Such action would cost the Florida economy a fortune —
even more money down the climate rat hole.

And thanks in no small part to the nearly two decades without any
warming, it looks as though the amount the EPA assumes will occur this
century was substantially exaggerated.

Some of Steyer’s ad footage clearly conflates warming and tidal
inundations caused by hurricane winds. The fact is a lot of people in
Florida don’t remember the last big (Category 3 or higher) one,
Hurricane Wilma, which made landfall in Florida on Oct. 24, 2005. In
fact, Wilma was the last such Category 3 to strike in the entire U.S.,
3,292 days ago. This is the longest that the country has gone without
such a storm since the Civil War era, and 23 days from now, we will be
in the longest major hurricane drought in our recorded history.

The truth of the matter is, the planet is warmer than it was, and
there’s some evidence that people have something to do with it. It just
doesn’t have anything to do with hurricanes and their brethren around
the entire planet, nor is it strong enough to even induce a significant
warming trend in the overall Florida record.

Incidentally, the hallmark of warming from carbon dioxide (recent years
notwithstanding) is that the coldest air masses of the winter are what
warm the most. These are what freeze Florida’s orange crop. One
notorious 1977 freeze, dubbed The Siberian Express, actually put down
snow in Miami, for the first and only time since good weather records
have been kept.

As Casey Stengel would have said, “you could look it up,” which is
precisely what people do when hectored about the upcoming climate
apocalypse. People my age have lived through about nine such
apocalypses. “Acid rain” seems so quaint now, doesn’t it?

The reason voters rank global warming dead last is because they are
tired of these false apocalypses. They are suffering from apocalypse
fatigue, something well-heeled political donors would do well to
recognize. Throwing money at exaggerated disasters may cost more votes
than it buys.

Ecofascists have a clear motive when fearmongering about global warming.
They want more and more government control over our everyday lives.
That’s what we expect the day after tomorrow. The Washington Post
reports, “On Nov. 2, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change will release its ‘Synthesis Report,’ the final stage in a
yearlong document dump that, collectively, presents the current expert
consensus about climate change and its consequences.”

No one has ever accused these scientists of underestimating the threat.
Until now. The Post notes, “According to a number of scientific critics,
the scientific consensus represented by the IPCC is a very conservative
consensus. IPCC’s reports, they say, often underestimate the severity
of global warming, in a way that may actually confuse policymakers (or
worse). The IPCC, one scientific group charged last year, has a tendency
to ‘err on the side of least drama.’” The least drama? What movie have
they been watching? Certainly not “The Day After Tomorrow.

Back in 1970, when I got involved in the first Earth Day and nascent
environmental movement, we had real pollution problems. But over time,
new laws, regulations, attitudes and technologies cleaned up our air,
water and sloppy industry practices. By contrast, today’s battles are
rarely about the environment.

As Ron Arnold and I detail in our new book, Cracking Big Green: To save
the world from the save-the-Earth money machine, today’s eco-battles pit
a $13.4-billion-per-year U.S. environmentalist industry against the
reliable, affordable, 82 percent fossil fuel energy that makes our jobs,
living standards, health, welfare and environmental quality possible. A
new Senate Minority Staff Report chronicles how today’s battles pit
poor, minority and blue-collar families against a far-left “Billionaires
Club” and the radical environmentalist groups it supports and directs,
in collusion with federal, state and local bureaucrats, politicians and
judges – and with thousands of corporate bosses and alarmist scientists
who profit mightily from the arrangements.

These ideologues run masterful, well-funded, highly coordinated
campaigns that have targeted, not just coal, but all hydrocarbon energy,
as well as nuclear and even hydroelectric power. They fully support the
Obama agenda, largely because they helped create that agenda.

They seek ever-greater control over our lives, livelihoods, living
standards and liberties – in part because they know they will rarely, if
ever, be held accountable for the fraudulent science they employ and
the callous, careless or deliberate harm they inflict. And because they
know their wealth and power will largely shield them from the
deprivations that their policies impose on the vast majority of
Americans.

These Radical Greens have shuttered coal mines, coal-fired power plants,
factories, the jobs that went with them, and the family security,
health and welfare that went with those jobs. They have largely
eliminated leasing, drilling, mining and timber harvesting across
hundreds of millions of acres in the western United States and Alaska –
and are now targeting ranchers. In an era of innovative seismic and
drilling technologies, they have cut oil production by 6% on federally
controlled onshore and offshore lands.

Meanwhile, thanks to a hydraulic fracturing revolution that somehow flew
in under the Radical Green radar, oil production on state and private
lands has soared by 60% – from 5 million barrels per day in 2008 (the
lowest ebb since 1943) to 8 million bpd in 2014. Natural gas output
climbed even more rapidly. This production reduced gas and gasoline
prices and created hundreds of thousands of jobs in hundreds of
industries and virtually every state. So now, of course, Big Green is
waging war on “fracking” (which the late Total Oil CEO Christophe de
Margerie jovially preferred to call “rock massage”).

As Marita Noon recently noted, Environment America has issued a phony
“Fracking by the Numbers” screed. It grossly misrepresents this
67-year-old technology and falsely claims the oil industry deliberately
obscures the alleged environmental, health and community impacts of
fracking, by limiting its definition to only the actual moment in the
extraction process when rock is fractured. For facts about fracking,
revisit a few of my previous articles: here, here and here.

Moreover, when it comes to renewable energy, Big Green studiously
ignores its own demands for full disclosure and obfuscates the impacts
of technologies it promotes. Wind power is a perfect example.

Far from being “free” and “eco-friendly,” wind-based electricity is
extremely unreliable and expensive, despite the mandates and subsidies
lavished on it. The cradle-to-grave ecological impacts are startling.

The United States currently has over 40,000 turbines, up to 450 feet
tall and 1.5 megawatts in nameplate output. Unpredictable winds mean
they generate electricity at 15-20 percent of this “rated capacity.” The
rest of the time mostly fossil fuel generators do the work. That means
we need 5 to 15 times more steel, concrete, copper and other raw
materials, to build huge wind facilities, transmission lines to far-off
urban centers, and “backup” generators – than if we simply built the
backups near cities and forgot about the turbines.

Every one of those materials requires mining, processing, shipping – and
fossil fuels. Every turbine, backup generator and transmission line
component requires manufacturing, shipping – and fossil fuels. The
backups run on fossil fuels, and because they must “ramp up” dozens of
times a day, they burn fuel very inefficiently, need far more fuel, and
emit far more “greenhouse gases,” than if we simply built the backups
and forgot about the wind turbines. The related land and environmental
impacts are enormous.

Environmentalists almost never mention any of this – or the wildlife and human impacts.

Bald and golden eagles and other raptors are attracted to wind turbines,
by prey and the prospect of using the towers for perches, nests and
resting spots, Save the Eagles International president Mark Duchamp
noted in comments to the US Fish & Wildlife Service. As a result,
thousands of these magnificent flyers are slaughtered by turbines every
year. Indeed, he says, turbines are “the perfect ecological trap” for
attracting and killing eagles, especially as more and more are built in
and near important habitats.

Every year, Duchamp says, they also butcher millions of other birds and
millions of bats that are attracted to turbines by abundant insects – or
simply fail to see the turbine blades, whose tips travel at 170 mph.

Indeed, the death toll is orders of magnitude higher than the “only”
440,000 per year admitted to by Big Wind companies and the USFWS. Using
careful carcass counts tallied for several European studies, I have
estimated that turbines actually kill at least 13,000,000 birds and bats
per year in the USA alone!

Wildlife consultant Jim Wiegand has written several articles that
document these horrendous impacts on raptors, the devious methods the
wind industry uses to hide the slaughter, and the many ways the FWS and
Big Green collude with Big Wind operators to exempt wind turbines from
endangered species, migratory bird and other laws that are imposed with
iron fists on oil, gas, timber and mining companies. The FWS and other
Interior Department agencies are using sage grouse habitats and White
Nose Bat Syndrome to block mining, drilling and fracking. But wind
turbines get a free pass, a license to kill.

Big Green, Big Wind and Big Government regulators likewise almost never
mention the human costs – the sleep deprivation and other health impacts
from infrasound noise and constant light flickering effects associated
with nearby turbines, as documented by Dr. Sarah Laurie and other
researchers.

In short, wind power may well be our least sustainable energy source –
and the one least able to replace fossil fuels or reduce carbon dioxide
emissions that anti-energy activists falsely blame for climate change
(that they absurdly claim never happened prior to the modern industrial
age). But of course their rants have nothing to do with climate change
or environmental protection.

The climate change dangers exist only in computer models, junk-science
“studies” and press releases. But as the “People’s Climate March” made
clear, today’s watermelon environmentalists (green on the outside, red
on the inside) do not merely despise fossil fuels, fracking and the
Keystone pipeline. They also detest free enterprise capitalism, modern
living standards, private property … and even pro football!

They invent and inflate risks that have nothing to do with reality, and
dismiss the incredible benefits that fracking and fossil fuels have
brought to people worldwide. They go ballistic over alleged risks of
using modern technologies, but are silent about the clear risks of not
using those technologies. And when it comes to themselves, Big Green and
the Billionaires Club oppose and ignore the transparency, integrity,
democracy and accountability that they demand from everyone they attack.

In particular he concludes “climate sensitivity, CS, is close to zero”.
This means any effect of CO2 on Earth’s temperature and climate is
vanishingly small, hence unimportant. Singer leaves his warmist camp and
joins the denier camp of skeptics.

I met Singer at his University of Houston lecture hosted by Prof Larry
Bell on February 6, 2012 and his several talks at the latest Heartland
Institute ICCC, Las Vegas, July 7-9, 2014. He has played an important
role in disputing alarmist global warming claims for decades. He has
received many awards.

Singer reveals he assumes CO2 warms Earth because it is called a
greenhouse gas, which does not make it so. It is also green plant food,
which does chemically make it a coolant. Great confusion arises
when a radiating gas, which cools the atmosphere, is incorrectly labeled
a greenhouse gas and then warming is arbitrarily assigned to it, by
virtue of the nomenclature change.

I discovered in 2012 introducing radiating gases like H2O and CO2 to the
atmosphere actually cools the Earth slightly and had useful direct
email exchanges with Singer on the matter. Naturally I am pleased he has
reached a similar conclusion, perhaps by another way.

The proper way to calculate CS is from the laws of physics, chemistry,
biology and chemical engineering with correct physical properties.
Relying on empiricism and data regression for large complex engineering
systems is well known to be incorrect and flawed. They never represent
the nonlinear world outside their domain of fit; cannot extrapolate,
only interpolate. Same for stock market charting. The whole data fitting
exercise to support GHGT (greenhouse gas theories) is worthless from
its inception. (Except it conveniently proved CO2 lags temperature by
800 years from Al Gore’s 420,000 year trend, proving CO2 could not cause
these temperature changes; the sun did it.)

My way is physics, the Stefan Boltzmann Law of radiation intensity from
all matter proportional to its temperature and emissivity. This Law
works for entire planets, even when there are clouds, thermal feedbacks
and hurricanes.

I parted company with Singer with his current “Of course, the proper way
to determine Climate Sensitivity (CS) is empirically -- by using the
climate data.” two years ago. That is wrong. He expresses misgivings
himself.

Singer and GHGT promoters are wedded to the idea of correlating
temperature and CO2 data, which alone can only prove correlation, never
causation. A corollary error is to account for other known causes
driving temperature, like solar, and ascribe all response discrepancy
actually due to unknown causes, to CO2. Another error is to
statistically fit data to empirical equations and attempt to extrapolate
outside the validity domain of the data. Interpolation is allowed,
extrapolation of nonlinear natural world outside the domain is not. A
fourth error is to deviate from the scientific method practice which
uses experimental data to falsify proposed theories that don’t predict
nature’s behavior well, rather than claim validity of when predictions
are confirmed by luck. A fifth error is to keep data analysis methods
used to support validity of hunches confidential, particularly when
publically financed. (Newton’s Principia Mathematica made him famous by
full disclosure.) Worst of all is filing defamation lawsuits against
skeptics questioning secret GHGT methods, assumptions and scientific
basis. Even smearing them and attacking their character is unacceptable.
Five strikes and you are way out. These principles are well known to
control systems engineers, but not UN IPCC GHGT promoters that lack
credentials.

Singer correctly notes there are several different temperatures
involved; a source of confusion I discovered years ago. The GHGT
literature is intellectually incoherent, a mess. He is correct to point
out atmospheric global warming ceased since 1997 until now, 2014. The
globe warms about half the time, 4.6 billion/2 = 2.3 billion years. It
cools half the time also.

He has been wandering around in the swamp of atmospheric feedbacks,
positive or negative, proclaiming it is all too complicated and
controversial. Like esteemed MIT Professor Richard Lindzen and other
meteorologists, he is trapped in his feedback swamp and can’t get out.

Feedbacks are the province of control systems engineering. (I know what
feedback control is and how to build it. In 1997 I proved any thermostat
for Earth adjusting fossil fuel combustion is unmeasurable,
unobservable and uncontrollable; it will never work. Even Lord Monckton
is beginning to consider control systems engineering; I encountered him
personally in Las Vegas.)

Inventing a new mechanism of radiant heat transfer, back-radiation, from
cold atmospheric CO2 molecules back down to Earth’s surface, with
intensity 333 w/m2 (compared to solar intensity reaching surface which
averages 161 w/m2 of surface) warming it further, causing it to radiate
up even more intensely at 396 w/m2, violates FLoT and SLoT, constituting
a perpetual motion machine creating energy to drive global warming, an
impossibility of nature. Heat does not flow from cold matter to hot
matter, heating hot further; only from hot to cold. This is engineering
fraud of the first order. GHGT has been falsified by eminent physicists.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

4 November, 2014

IPCC Links New Report to Sneering Stephen Schneider

An organization whose reputation is in tatters links its new document to a rude, intolerant, highly politicized climate crusader

Earlier today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
released the final installment of its latest tome. The 40-page summary
of what is, itself, a summary of already-public material can be seen
here.

Page two contains the following statement: “This report is dedicated to the memory of Stephen H. Schneider 1945-2010.”

That’s right. This supposedly scientific body, composed of supposedly
dispassionate scientific experts discussing what many believe to be the
world’s most pressing problem, have deliberately undercut their own
case. They’ve chosen to contaminate their conclusions by linking them to
a specific individual.

The late Stephen Schneider was no pillar of scientific integrity. He was
not a role model any of us would wish our children to emulate. Indeed,
the portrait of him that emerged via the climategate files is
cringe-worthy.

I’ve previously discussed an e-mail he wrote to a lawyer employed by the
activist group known as the Environmental Defense Fund, but cc’d to 14
now prominent climate actors (backed up here). Schneider, being
significantly older than many of these individuals, was in a leadership
position. It was his job to set an example of how scientists in his camp
should behave toward those of a more skeptical frame of mind.

Rather than demonstrating grace, tolerance, humility, or patience he
acted like a demented sports fan – the sort who riot and beat-up people
when their team doesn’t win. (The metaphor isn’t mine. Schneider titled
his 2009 book Science as a Contact Sport.)

When these kinds of riots take place, honourable ideas such as fair play
and good sportsmanship are pushed aside by something uglier. That
e-mail exposes Schneider as a sneering, smearing individiual – as
someone who responds to critics by hurling insults, by calling them
“idiots,” “incompetents,” and “bozos.” The lesson he taught these
younger scientists had two components:

lawyers paid to advance activist agendas are part of the in-crowd

people on the other team are unworthy of simple human courtesy, never mind serious consideration

A second climategate e-mail makes it clear that Schneider was a
dangerous enemy of free speech. As I explain here, when Schneider turned
down an invitation to participate in a 2003 conference, it wasn’t for
scientific reasons – but political ones. In the universe Schneider
inhabited, a company that had the temerity to publish a book with which
he disagreed – Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist - deserved
to be bad-mouthed and boycotted.

In that e-mail (backed up here), Schneider refuses to attend the
conference because material presented there will, afterward, be
published by Cambridge University Press. He says the only way he’d
consider associating himself with that publishing house is if it

withdrew Lomborg’s book

apologized “to the scientific community” and

admitted to “scientific fraud”

For good measure, Schneider’s e-mail accuses an editor of being
“dishonest” and of “wrapping him self up in an authors right to speak”
(sic). Heaven forfend that anyone employed in the publishing industry
should defend free and open debate.

But let us bring this discussion back to the IPCC – those geniuses who
thought it was a good idea to link their findings to a rude, intolerant,
highly politicized climate crusader. On page 125 of his above-mentioned
book, Schneider confirms that the IPCC is just another old boys’ club.

Like hundreds of other people, he received a draft of the IPCC’s first
report and was invited to provide feedback. This means he served as an
external expert reviewer. The IPCC then lied to the public about his
role. Here are Schneider’s own words:

"They used some of my suggestions, and when the
Assessment Report was published a year later, I was listed as a
contributing author. It was flattering they thought to acknowledge me,
since I spent only a dozen or so hours on it."

At the IPCC, there is a huge difference between an expert reviewer and a
contributing author. The two are not the same, and everyone knows it.
Yet, from its earliest days the IPCC thought it was OK to indulge in
this sort of sleight-of-hand.

Schneider, who later became an IPCC mover-and-shaker, saw nothing wrong
with this. Rather than insisting that the record be corrected, his ego
basked in the flattery. Rather than insisting on the unvarnished truth
so that no one would have any reason to doubt the word of this
UN-sponsored body, he went along with the lie.

Which is why the IPCC’s latest report belongs in the dustbin. After all
the criticism that has been leveled against this organization in recent
years, it still doesn’t get it. It doesn’t understand that its
reputation is in tatters. It doesn’t recognize any need whatsoever for
scrupulous, disinterested, and – above all – apolitical behaviour.

In that sense, the IPCC has done us all a favour by linking its latest
document to a scientist whose legacy falls far short of admirable. Those
two things do, indeed, belong together.

For decades now both the U.S. and Europe have suffered the arrogance and
the lies of so-called “climate experts.” Mind you, there are some real
ones and, when it comes to global warming and climate change, the
interchangeable names for the lies, they are the ones labeled “deniers”
and worse for telling the truth.

The fundamental lie is that humans, through their use of fossil fuels,
coal, oil and natural gas, are creating huge amounts of carbon dioxide
(CO2) which in turn is warming the Earth. You will hear the lies again
when the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its
latest report.

“The report should galvanize the world to take urgent and collective
action to curb climate change,” says Frances Beinecke, president of the
Natural Resources Defense Council. “We’re almost out of time to avoid
the worst…”

We have been told this since the 1980s. It is pure fear mongering.

The problem for the phony “climate experts” is that the Earth has not
warmed in the last 19 years and CO2 plays a minimal role in the alleged
warming. What you never hear the “climate experts” tell you is that CO2
is vital to all life on Earth because it is the “food” that all
vegetation depends upon for growth. More CO2 is a very good thing and,
in the past, its levels in the atmosphere have been much higher.

On October 24 my eye was caught by a news article that reported that
“European Union leaders agreed on a set of long-term targets on energy
and climate change, Friday, giving financial sweeteners and weakening
some objectives along the way to secure a deal…European leaders
committed to cutting carbon emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared
with 1990 levels, which will be legally binding on every member state.”

One of the real meteorologists, Anthony Watts, took notice of the EU.
“…Anyone who is expecting a rational re-appraisal of European
environment policy—don’t underestimate the blind determination of
Europe’s green elite to fulfill their dream of an emission free Europe.
They will, in my opinion, happily bomb the European economy back into
the stone age to achieve their ridiculous goal.”

In November of last year, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., a columnist for The
Wall Street Journal, took note of Germany’s “love affair with renewables
(solar and wind energy) brings high prices, potential blackouts, and
worries about ‘deindustrialization.’”

“Like Mao urging peasants to melt down their pots, pans and farm tools
to turn China into a steel-producing superpower overnight, Germany
dished out subsidies to encourage homeowners and farms to install solar
panels and windmills and sell energy back to the power company at
inflated prices. Success—Germany now gets 25% of its power from
renewables—has turned out to be a disaster.”

Jenkins noted that not only had Germany’s output of carbon dioxide
increased, but “money-strapped utilities have switched to burning cheap
American coal to provide the necessary standby power when wind and sun
fail.” The cost of electricity rates in Germany is triple those in the
U.S.

Yes, solar and wind power everywhere require fossil fuel plants as a
backup whenever the sun is obscured by clouds or the wind doesn’t blow.
In the U.S., Obama’s “war on coal” has decreased the number of utilities
that utilize it and, in turn, reduced the amount of electricity
available. The prospect of blackouts here has increased. If we encounter
a harsh winter, that would put people’s lives in danger.

One has to understand that the lies about global warming and/or climate
change are in fact an environmental agenda designed to reduce
industrialization and the use of energy everywhere.

Harold Schwager, a senior member of BASF’s executive board said in an
interview, “Many European companies which are energy-intensive are
finding out that the benefits of shifting investment to the U.S. are
significant.” Germany and the EU are driving out industry and the jobs
it represents because of their idiotic carbon dioxide emissions
policies.

This is why we all need to understand the real “environmental” agenda.
Writing in the Financial Times on October 27, Nick Butler said “Last
week’s European summit on climate change failed to address the hard
reality that current policies are not working.”

As in the U.S. the construction of wind turbine farms such as the one
offshore of Borkum, Germany in the North Sea only exist by virtue of
extensive subsidies that are wreaking havoc on European energy markets.
That’s the reality!

Here in the U.S. in 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama gave a speech in
Golden, Colorado, saying that his planned investments in “green energy”
would create “five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever been
outsourced.”

How did that work out? Six years later we know those “green” jobs were
not created and that his energy policies have actually reduced the
production of vital electricity. Will new jobs in industries dependent
on fossil-fuels be created? Yes and they will come from European
industrial investment and increased oil and natural gas production here
despite Obama’s agenda.

That is why the European Union’s idiotic commitment to cut greenhouse
gas emissions (CO2) is putting the entire continent in danger and that
is why America has to stop providing subsidies and tax breaks to
“renewable”, “green” energy here and mandating its use.

Whenever you hear some “climate expert” or politician refer to global
warming or climate change, they are lying to you. We have more CO2 in
the atmosphere and the Earth is still in a cooling cycle.

Polar bear biologists doing mark-recapture work in Hudson Bay may have misled the world

What exactly are Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bear researchers hiding?
Since 2004, research on the body condition and cub production of
Western Hudson Bay (WHB) polar bears has been carried out but none of
the results of these mark-recapture studies have been made public.

The researchers all claim that WHB polar bears are struggling to survive
because of recent sea ice changes but won’t release the 10 years worth
of updated information they possess on the bears or the sea ice.

Mark-recapture work entails chasing the bears down with helicopters
(including females with newborn cubs), drugging them with a cocktail of
sedatives that taint the meat (and perhaps the milk of nursing mothers)
for months afterward, installing radio collars or ear tags, extracting a
tooth for aging, drawing blood and fat samples, and before it’s all
over, posing for a few up-close-and-personal photos with the tiny cubs
of drugged females

That’s a lot of stress to the bears and to what end? Detailed biological
information about the bears that’s necessary for sound management, we
are told.

In order to assess the true status of a population, biologists tell us
they need to compare the size of litters, the proportion of yearlings
(1-2 yrs old), the rate of cub survival, and the weight of adult bears
(altogether, these are the so-called “vital rates” of the population).

However, I just updated a list I made in this previous post (which has
the references) and you should know that by 2014, there has now been:

— No published data available for size of WHB litters or proportion of independent yearlings since 1998 (16 yrs ago).

— No data on cub survival in WHB since 1992 (22 yrs ago).

— No data published on weight of lone WHB females since 2004 (10 yrs ago)

— No data published on weight of adult WHB males and females with cubs since 1998 (16 years ago)

There has also been no sea ice data published for Hudson Bay since 2004
(10 yrs ago) using the old method of determining breakup/freeze-up (50%
ice coverage); using the new method of determining breakup and freeze-up
(30% coverage/10% coverage over WHB, respectively), the last year of
data is 2009 (5 yrs ago).

The Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) promised in February 2014 that
this year, polar bear data collected since 2004 in WHB would be
released:

“A new population estimate based on extensive continued Physical
Capture-Recapture will be available in 2014 and, will provide an updated
assessment of the long-term trend in population size and vital rates,
that is not possible from a single aerial survey.“

[Note that the upgrade to the trend status for the WHB subpopulation
recently made by Environment Canada (discussed here) — from “declining”
(according the PBSG in February 2014) to “likely stable” (June 2014) —
appears to have been based on the publication of a peer-reviewed paper
on aerial survey population size estimate (Stapleton et al. 2014,
discussed here), not mark-recapture results]

And with little more than two months remaining in the year, there has
been nary a whisper of what those mark-recapture studies showed. What we
have heard is an ever-increasing litany of polar bear woos:

“Melting ice is cutting polar bears off from their food source in Hudson Bay, and death rates have soared.”

“Our estimation is that we probably won’t have polar bears in Churchill
once we get out to mid-century … They could be gone in a couple of
years.”

And Steve Amstrup, spokesperson for Polar Bears International, claimed in an interview a few weeks ago that in WHB:

“Only about 3 percent of the western Hudson Bay population, for example, is now composed of yearlings.“

Compared to what? Apparently, Amstrup knows but we aren’t allowed to see
the details of the studies that generated that information.

Andrew Derocher (University of Alberta) and several of his students
(including Patrick Mislan shown above), Nick Lunn (Environment Canada),
and conservation activist organization Polar Bears International (led by
former USGS biologist Steve Amstrup) have all been doing invasive
research on WHB polar bears using mark-recapture methods over the last
10 years but none of the data on body condition, cub survival and litter
sizes have been published.

Remember this when you hear and read statements from these biologists
and other conservation activists over the next few weeks and months. You
might even ask yourself:

Are polar bear biologists withholding data on Western Hudson Bay
mark-recapture work and breakup/freeze-up dates because the results
don’t support their claims? Should the recent upgrade to “likely stable“
have happened five years ago — or even earlier?

We wait, with bated breath, for evidence that the biologists entrusted
with collecting and publishing unbiased scientific data have not been
deliberately misleading us about the current status of Western Hudson
Bay polar bears.

“This is not the same industry we had 15 years ago,” Natural Gas Supply
Association VP Jennifer Fordham said recently. That’s an understatement.
The oil, petrochemical and manufacturing industries are also far
different from those of 15 years ago. Together, they’ve created hundreds
of thousands of new jobs and generated countless billions of dollars in
economic activity. No thanks to the Obama Administration.

From EPA to Interior and even the Energy Department, the Administration
continues to display a strong animosity toward fossil fuels. Its war on
coal has hounded mines, power plants, jobs and communities. Its
opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline has thwarted the creation of tens
of thousands of construction jobs. Its bans on leasing, drilling and
hydraulic fracturing on federal onshore and offshore lands have caused a
6% drop in oil production from those lands and a 28% plunge in natural
gas output – costing thousands of jobs and tens of billions in bonus,
rent, royalty and tax revenues to the U.S. Treasury.

Nevertheless, you’d think Obama regulators and policy makers would
support natural gas pipelines. Even the Sierra Club promoted this fuel
as a “clean alternative to coal” just a couple years ago. But no.

The fracking revolution on America’s state and private lands has
unleashed a gusher of mammoth proportions. In just six years, 2008-2014,
it has generated a 58% increase in oil production (from 5 million to 8
million barrels per day) – and a 21% rise in natural gas production. By
the end of this year, U.S. crude oil production is projected to reach 9
million bpd. In the Marcellus Shale region, gas production is expected
to reach 16 billion cubic feet a day, twice the volume of only two years
ago.

However, this miraculous cornucopia is overwhelming the nation’s
existing delivery systems and, far from striving to eliminate the
bottleneck, the Obama Administration is creating new ones.

Not having the Keystone pipeline to transport Upper Midwest crude to
refineries has forced oil companies to move that oil by train. Rail
accidents have caused spills and deaths, but the regulatory focus has
been on stronger tanker cars, with insufficient attention paid to track
maintenance and safety – or pipelines.

Insufficient natural gas pipelines mean producers cannot deliver this
vital fuel to homes, hospitals, factories and electricity generating
plants, or to petrochemical plants that use it as a feed stock for
literally thousands of products. Pipeline companies are clamoring for
construction permits.

With supplies rising, prices for oil and natural gas are declining.
Global crude oil prices have fallen more than $20 a barrel and are
cheaper in the United States than in Europe. Natural gas prices in
the Marcellus area have been about half the U.S. benchmark price, which
is below $4 per thousand cubic feet (mcf), compared to prices as high
as $9 or even $20 per mcf (or Btu) in Europe and Asia. As a result,
despite a clear need for gas, some drillers are re-examining their
Marcellus plans, and an estimated 1,750 Pennsylvania natural gas wells
are not currently producing because pipeline connections are not
available.

Natural gas pipelines also ensure energy conservation and reduce air
pollution. A North Dakota pipeline would collect gas produced with crude
oil, eliminating the need to “flare” the gas. But permit delays,
largely by federal agencies, mean enough gas to heat 160,000 homes goes
up in smoke every month.

Why are pipelines lagging behind production? First, pipeline companies
build new capacity only when there is a demonstrated need. Second, and
most important, pipeline permit approvals are being delayed.

A 2013 INGAA Foundation study found that the number of interstate
natural gas pipeline authorizations issued more than 90 days after
federal environmental assessments were completed climbed from 8% to 28%
since Congress passed the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Rather than
streamlining permits, as Congress had intended, the law had the opposite
effect. It removed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s ability
to keep project reviews on a strict schedule, allowed both state and
federal agencies to drag their heels on pipeline permitting, and opened
the door to more objections by environmental pressure groups.

Authorization delays were caused by conflicts among federal agencies, as
well as inadequate or under-trained agency staff, applicant changes to
projects requiring additional or revised environmental review (often in
response to environmentalist or other third-party protests and demands),
site-access problems, and FERC and other agency reviews of requirements
for mitigating asserted environmental impacts, INGAA concluded.
Increased partisanship at FERC has also increased delays.

The Obama Army Corps of Engineers slowed pipeline permits by citing the
Clean Water Act. Its Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) cited the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act to justify slow-walking permits. Its
Environmental Protection Agency wants to control all “waters of the
United States” (WOTUS), so as to exert regulatory authority over
activities on federal, state and private lands – including drilling,
fracking and pipelines – in the name of sustainability, climate change
prevention and other eco-mantras.

The MBTA bans the “taking” (harassing, harming, killing, capturing or
wounding) of migratory birds, their nests and eggs related to natural
gas pipelines and other projects. Because building a pipeline requires
clearing a right-of-way, excavating and other activities that could
affect wildlife for a short time, a permit is required. But native
grasses soon cover the route, and state-of-the-art steel, valves and
safety features greatly reduce the likelihood of ruptures and spills,
compared to earlier generation pipelines.

And yet the Obama FWS drags its feet on pipeline permits – while
approving numerous renewable energy projects beloved by the President
and his “green” base, including massive wind turbines that slaughter
millions of eagles, hawks, bats and other threatened, endangered and
migratory species every year.

The FWS also blessed the huge Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System
on the Nevada/California border. It uses 300,000 mirrors to reflect the
sun’s rays onto three 40-story water-filled towers to produce steam and
generate electricity. Eagles, owls, falcons and other birds that fly
between the solar panels and towers become “streamers,” because the
500-degree heat turns them into smoking, disintegrating corpses as they
plummet to earth. There’s little left to find or bury – making it easy
for Big Solar regulators, operators and promoters to claim “minimal”
wildlife impacts. In fact, during the Ivanpah project’s environmental
review, the FWS focused on desert tortoises and missed the bird
crematorium issue.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management unveiled a sweeping plan that
would revise longstanding resource management plans, to install buffer
zones around “sensitive” Gunnison sage grouse habitats, impose seasonal
restrictions on oil and gas drilling and livestock grazing, and close
roads and trails wherever grouse are present. But in the midst of this
effort, BLM and various state governments are also working to streamline
“eco-friendly” solar, wind, geothermal and transmission line projects
that they claim will reduce “dangerous” carbon dioxide emissions.
Natural gas would do that, too, of course.

Natural gas is clean, affordable and reliable – if it can reach
consumers through pipelines, which are the safest form of energy
transportation. Unfortunately, the Obama principle seems to be: If it
requires subsidies, raises energy prices, costs jobs, impacts thousands
of acres, and butchers birds and bats – expedite approval. If it
generates royalty and tax revenues, produces reliable, affordable
energy, creates jobs, and has minimal impacts on endangered and
migratory species – delay or ban it. Talk about crazy.

The administration’s fixation on ideological environmentalism is not
helping the environment, the economy, or consumers. It is a political
ploy designed to garner liberal votes and rake in more money from
campaign donors like Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund manager who
got his money from coal.

America needs more pipelines. The Obama Administration needs to let
industry build them. Perhaps a reconstituted Senate (with Harry Reid as
Minority Leader) can lead the way. America will prosper!

It must have taken the patience of Job for West Virginia Senator Joe
Manchin to participate in Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s
climate change tour of the Ocean State on October 10. Whitehouse
promised Manchin that he would go to West Virginia to learn about the
coal industry if Manchin would come to Rhode Island to view the supposed
effects of global warming on sea-level.

It is important to put the concerns of the two senators in perspective.

On the one hand, Manchin is fighting for the survival of West Virginia’s
coal sector, his state’s most important industry, the source of 95% of
its electricity, and the foundation for thousands of jobs in dozens of
communities. The state’s use of abundant, domestically mined coal gives
West Virginia the 7th lowest electricity costs in America – at about
one-half the price in California, New York, Rhode Island and several
other states.

But West Virginia’s coal sector is under siege from increasingly
damaging Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules. Those rules have
meant total coal production in West Virginia declined 9% between 2012
and 2013, a period during which 17% of the Mountain State’s coal mines
closed, and coal employment decreased 6.4% for a loss of 3,457 jobs
already. Even before the EPA’s new Clean Power Plan regulations, which
Whitehouse promotes, come into force, the EPA and Obama Administration’s
“war on coal” has already cost West Virginia billions of dollars.

Senator Manchin, in other words, is concerned about the immediate,
real-world impacts of climate change regulations on real people,
families and businesses in his state.

Senator Whitehouse has a different perspective and is apparently not
concerned about the cost of EPA emission regulations. Rhode Island gets
none of its electricity from coal, having chosen less-carbon-intensive
natural gas as its preferred source of power.

As a result, the state has the 7th highest electricity prices in the
continental United States. The impact of these high prices on hospitals,
schools, churches, businesses and families is significant.

The White House, of course, shares Senator Whitehouse’s perspective.
Neither seems worried that, under the EPA rules, electricity prices will
“necessarily skyrocket,” as Obama put it when describing his energy
plans as Democratic candidate for president in 2008.

Mr. Whitehouse is, however, worried about the hypothetical future impact
of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired power stations on
“global temperatures.” He believes this will cause “dangerous” sea-level
rise along Rhode Island’s coast. Mr. Whitehouse does not hide the fact
that, because of these beliefs, he sees his mission as “more or less” to
put the coal industry out of business.

If it were known with a high degree of probability that dangerous
human-caused sea-level rise was right around the corner, then Mr.
Manchin might have reason to sacrifice his constituents’ livelihoods to
help save Rhode Islanders from being submerged. But this is not the
case.

The September 2013 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on
Climate Change states: “Sea-level rise is not accelerating. The global
average sea-level continues to increase at its long-term rate of 1–2
mm/year [0.04-0.08 inches/year] globally” – or four to eight inches over
the next century.

As it happens, sea-level rise on the coast of Rhode Island is slightly
faster than the global rate – about a tenth of an inch per year in
Newport, for example – or ten inches over the next 100 years.
Nonetheless, such a slow rate of rise is relatively easy to adapt to,
and certainly not worth ruining West Virginia’s economy on the
off-chance that it would make any difference to coastal conditions in
Rhode Island.

Bear in mind that sea levels have already risen nearly 400 feet since
the end of the last Pleistocene Era ice age some 12,000 years ago.

The conflict between the two senators arises because of Mr. Whitehouse’s
outmoded belief that rapid CO2-driven global warming is occurring.
This, he believes, will cause accelerated glacial melting, the ocean
volume to expand, and global sea-level to rise quickly. That in turn
would subject low-lying coastal areas of Rhode Island to increasingly
intense peak-tide or storm-surge flooding.

However, every step in Whitehouse’s chain of reasoning is either wrong
or misleading and based on computer models that falsely assume rising
atmospheric CO2 levels will cause rapid global warming. In reality, no
global (atmospheric) warming has occurred for the last 18 years, even
though CO2 levels have risen 9% during this time.

Neither has there been significant ocean warming since at least 2003. As
a consequence, the ocean is not expanding and cannot be causing extra
sea-level rise. In fact, the global rate of sea-level rise has actually
decreased over the last decade.

The only way the sort of sea-level rise feared by Mr. Whitehouse is
possible is if massive quantities of the Antarctic and Greenland
ice-caps melted. Not only did that not happen even during the two-degree
warmer Holocene Optimum, five to nine thousands years ago, but both the
Greenland and Antarctic ice fields have been expanding in recent years.

Moreover, rates of modern sea-level change are controlled by the volume
of water in the ocean (which is dependant on worldwide volumes of land
ice at any given time), by dynamic oceanographic features such as
movements in major ocean currents, and by the uplift or subsidence of
the solid earth beneath any measuring station. Humans control none of
these factors.

Senator Whitehouse should recognize that Rhode Island’s coastal
management problems are his own state’s responsibility, not those of
West Virginians. As sea-level continues its natural slow rise
along Rhode Island’s coast, flooding due to peak tides and storm surges
will continue much as it has for the past century. The way to cope with
any small increase in the magnitude of these events is to apply and
strengthen current strategies that increase coastal resilience.

In his June 4, 2008 speech on winning the Democratic primaries,
President Obama said, “If we are willing to work for it, and fight for
it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that, generations
from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this
was the moment ...when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our
planet began to heal.”

Senator Whitehouse may still believe this pious dream. However, Senator
Manchin must resist the nonsensical demand that West Virginians
sacrifice their livelihoods and living standards in a vain and King
Canute-like attempt to stop the seas from rising.

Via email

YES, THE SCIENCE IS NOW SETTLED ... it’s total bunkum!

Comment by conservative Australian cartoonist, Larry Pickering.
He left school at 14 so is much more interested in reality than in
theory

What will it take to convince the true believers of global warming that
they have been led up a garden path? A garden path paved in gold for the
scammers of the UN, the IPCC and all those set for a windfall in carbon
credit trading.

Ban Ki-moon is throwing everything he has at the failing global warming
hoax in one last ditch stand to justify his tenure as Secretary General
which ends next year.

Let’s get this matter cleared up once and for all. The IPCC is not in
any way a scientific body (it forecast the Himalayas would be devoid of
snow for Christ’s sake) it is no more than a publicity arm of outrageous
warming lobbyists and is stacked with well-paid misfits who are also
set for a windfall if they can pull this one off.

The IPCC’s job is to collate, and present as fact, papers of the
pro-warming nutters holed up in universities and the far Left and Greens
who dream of a UN dominated world financed by a carbon scam worth an
anticipated trillions a year.

The UN receives 10 per cent of all receipts from countries running
global warming carbon schemes. It has already pocketed a packet of
Aussies’ hard-earned via Julia Gillard.

What more does the Left need than to view a hideous Australian landscape
visually polluted with ineffective, unprofitable, inefficient and
costly wind farms that are killing birdlife and causing migraines.

How painful is it to see desalination plants littering our coast lines,
de-commissioned, in disrepair, rusting and never to be used?

Why did we suffer fools like Garnaut and Flannery (neither of whom are
climatologists) who advised gullible Labor leaders like Queensland’s
Bligh to waste billions on a pipeline between Brisbane and the Gold
Coast’s Hinze Dam? A pipeline that was completed just in time for
torrential rains to fill every dam to capacity and flood homes.

The alarmist wastrels already have rap sheets as long as their arms with
their Y2K bug, Crown of Thorns Star fish, a disappearing ozone layer, a
disappearing Great Barrier Reef, soil erosion and forest degradation,
etc, etc... all of which were furphies designed to keep grants flowing
from taxpayers.

Now, totally discredited, they have turned to a “you beaut” global warming hoax... and it’s a bloody pearler!

Overnight they declared the plant nutrient CO2 a pollutant, organised
America’s greatest fraudster, Al Gore to convince everyone our polar
caps are disappearing and that New York would be under water in weeks
and that Greenland would soon be growing grapes, while a fool named
Flannery was suggesting it would never rain again, and that island
nations urgently needed face masks and snorkels.

Dramatic footage of the extremities of glaciers breaking off and
crashing into the ocean makes for good TV. But the simple truth has
nothing to do with warming. The ice at the glacier’s source is actually
increasing and has nowhere else to go.

It’s amazing the propaganda creative warmists can cook up when given free air time from willing media!

Universities are churning out thousands of illiterate kids on marine
biology grants to float aimlessly among coral reefs trying to find
something wrong to enable their grants to continue and hopefully
increase. What a life! Beats the hell out of getting a proper job.

To Tony Abbott’s dismay, his warmist Minister for the Environment, Greg
Hunt has just pulled an unexpected swifty with renewable energy targets
that are about to cost taxpayers another $2.5 billion to reduce
emissions that were reducing way beyond expectations anyway.

Renewable energy is a misnomer! Everything is renewable, even water, oil
and coal, it’s just a matter of how long you want to hang around!

The Greens refuse to selectively log old growth trees to allow new
growth, refuse to allow the damming of rivers to give us clean hydro
electricity and reject nuclear energy, the only practical, economic and
freely-available source of clean energy we have, and the rest of the
world has embraced.

Green councils impose fines for clearing the combustible undergrowth
that burns your house down and they don’t want money spent on roads
because it only encourages the use of petrol. WTF?

The Fisheries Department sets minimum sizes for fish caught, so only the
larger breeding fish are taken. Madness! And the loony
environmentalists insist crocodiles and sharks be permitted to eat
people

Media’s Left misrepresents steam from nuclear generators as scary smoke,
tells us Julia Gillard has been cleared of all charges, promotes Islam
as the religion of peace and suggests Islamic State Jihadists returning
home be offered free counselling.

So why the hell would anyone believe anything the mad Left media says anyway?

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

3 November, 2014

2014 Won’t Be Warmest Year

And what do a few hundredths of a degree matter anyway? That's
the quantum of the differences between years this century. And
across the entire thermometer record the differences are only in tenths
of a degree Celsius

Contrary to projections made by environmental journalist Seth Borenstein
in a widely reprinted article, 2014 will not be the hottest year on
record.

Based on average surface temperature data for January–September 2014,
Borenstein said the year is on pace to be the warmest in the modern
instrumental record. He’ll be proven wrong.

Dr. Roy Spencer points out thermometers can’t measure global averages –
only satellites can. Satellites measure nearly every square mile of
Earth’s lower atmosphere daily. By contrast, there are many areas where
one could travel hundreds of miles without finding a thermometer nearby.

According to the two main research groups tracking global
lower-tropospheric temperatures – Spencer’s group at the University of
Alabama - Huntsville and the Remote Sensing Systems group – the 2014
average temperature is significantly lower than those in 2010 and
especially 1998. There’s no way the global average will increase enough
in the remaining three months of the year to catch up.

Sparse coverage by land-based thermometers is one problem. A bigger
problem is the “homogenization” or adjustments to the land-based data.
When researchers actually throw out the real measured temperatures and
replace them with guesstimates, the surface temperature record amounts
to nothing more than garbage in, garbage out.

In addition, Spencer points out land-based measurements are biased as a
result of location. “[L]land-based thermometers are placed where people
live, and people build stuff, often replacing cooling vegetation with
manmade structures that cause an artificial warming (urban heat island,
UHI) effect right around the thermometer. The data adjustment processes
in place cannot reliably remove the UHI effect because it can’t be
distinguished from real global warming.”

Climate alarmists, who claim to be the champions of science, still “use
the outdated, spotty, and heavily-massaged thermometer data to support
their case,” wrote Spencer. They also continue to tout flawed climate
models that have missed both the pause in warming and the slowing of the
rise in sea levels. Spencer adds, “they sure do cling bitterly to
whatever will support their case,” and he quotes British economist
Ronald Coase: “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to
anything.”

Same old, same old prophecies -- but this time nobody thinks governments will do anything about it

The world is on course to experience “severe and pervasive” negative
impacts from climate change unless it takes rapid action to slash its
greenhouse gas emissions, a major UN report is expected to warn on
Sunday.

Flooding, dangerous heatwaves, ill health and violent conflicts are
among the likely risks if temperatures exceed 2C above pre-industrial
levels, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
will say.

Yet on current trends, continued burning of fossil fuels could see
temperature increases of between 3.7C and 4.8C by the end of the
century, the report warns, according to a draft seen by the Telegraph.

Warming beyond 4C would likely result in “substantial species
extinction, large risks to global and regional food security, impacts on
normal human activities”.

The final document, which has been agreed line-by-line by international
government officials at a summit in Copenhagen over the past week, is
intended to provide the clearest and most concise summary yet of the
widely-agreed scientific evidence on climate change.

It is a "synthesis" document bringing together the conclusions of three
major IPCC studies issued over the past year into the science, impacts
and ways of tackling climate change.

It is designed to act as a guide for policymakers ahead of a year of
intense political negotiations on how to tackle climate change,
culminating in a crunch summit in Paris next year where an international
deal on curbing emissions is due to be signed.

Yet despite the IPCC’s stark warnings, there is widespread agreement
from climate change activists, sceptics and, privately, UK Government
officials, that the summit in Paris is unlikely to achieve a
legally-binding deal that will curb warming to the 2C level.

Doing so would require a drastic overhaul of global energy systems in
order to cut emissions by between 40pc and 70pc from 2010 levels by
2050.

The proportion of energy sourced from low-carbon sources such as wind
farms, solar power and nuclear reactors would have to triple or nearly
quadruple, the draft says.

The expansion of such technologies has already proved controversial in the UK.

Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, has called for the UK’s
Climate Change Act, which imposes tough unilateral emissions-reductions
goals, to be suspended until other countries agree to similar measures.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN IPCC, opened the Copenhagen summit
by acknowledging the “seeming hopelessness of addressing climate
change” but imploring policymakers to “avoid being overcome” by it.

"It is not hopeless," he said, calling on governments to make decisions “informed by the science".

Richard Black, director of the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit,
said the key question for those finalising the IPCC report was “what to
say about the elephant in the room… that if the computer model
projections are right, keeping global warming below 2C basically means
ending fossil fuel use well before today’s children start drawing their
pensions”.

The UK Government has pushed for the wording of the report to be
strengthened to make crystal clear the emissions cuts that would be
needed to hit the 2C target, the risks of delaying action and also the
“co-benefits”, such as improved air quality.

These facts must not be “hidden in supporting text”, according to a UK submission seen by website Responding To Climate Change.

But countries including Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter,
have demanded the text should also acknowledge the negative economic
effects of abandoning fossil fuels.

Benny Peiser, of the climate-sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation,
said the IPCC report contents would not translate to agreement on a deal
in Paris.

“On the science there is no real discrepancy: the governments agree we
should make sure warming isn’t more than 2C. But when it really comes to
caps on their CO2 emissions there is simply no chance of an agreement
whatsoever,” he said.

“There are a number of countries that simply can’t afford to forgo the
cheap energy they are sitting on, countries like India and China. They
will make sure they can use the cheap fossil fuels they have under their
feet.”

Bob Ward, policy director at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on
Climate Change, said the report made clear it was “still technically
possible to avoid dangerous climate change”, but that required emissions
reductions would “only be possible if action starts immediately”.

“If strong action is not well underway by 2020, the chance of avoiding
dangerous climate change will be very small, if indeed possible at all,”
he said.

“I think there will be an international agreement in Paris next year,
but the commitments by individual countries to cut emissions will not be
consistent with the goal of avoiding global warming of more than 2C.

“World leaders may wait until there is even more evidence of the
damaging impacts of climate change before they accelerate action to cut
emissions, but any further delay will increase the magnitude of the
risks the world faces.”

After the 2009 Copenhagen global climate conference failed to produce a
legally-binding global treaty to replace the lapsing Kyoto Protocol,
climate campaigners are eager to put some kind of win on the board.
Therefore, despite threats to veto the deal and discussions that ran
into the wee hours, the European Union’s agreement on a new set of
climate and energy goals is being heralded as “a new global
standard”—though it is really more “I will, if you will.”

On Thursday October 23, 28 European leaders met at a summit in Brussels
to reach a climate deal that would build on previous targets of a 20
percent cut in greenhouse gases, a 20 percent boost in the use of
renewable sources, and a 20 percent increase in energy efficiency, from
the benchmark year of 1990, by 2020.

Prior to the meeting, countries such as Poland (which wanted to protect
its coal industry) and Portugal (which has excess renewable energy that
it cannot, currently, export to the rest of Europe) threatened to block
the deal. Poorer states in Eastern Europe feared new cuts in carbon
output would hurt them economically by slowing business growth.
Industrialists complained that the new regulations would discourage
business and investment in the bloc, at a time when its faltering
economy can ill afford to lose it.

In an interview with Reuters before the summit, Connie Hedegaard,
European Climate Commissioner, declared: “There should not be problems
that could not be overcome.” As predicated, a deal was struck—though the
current team of commissioners steps aside in days and the new
commission will have to finesse the implementation.

“It was not easy, not at all, but we managed to reach a fair decision,” European Council President Herman Van Rompuy stated.

The “problems” mentioned by Hedegaard were “overcome”—by cash. To get
opposing countries, like Poland, to come onboard, Van Rompuy pledged
“extra support for lower-income countries, both through adequate targets
and through additional funds to help them catch up in their
clean-energy transition.” Reports indicate that Poland “secured a
complex set of financial incentives …to soften the impact of the target
on Polish coal miners and the coal-fired power stations on which its 38
million people depend.”

The “decision” calls for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of at
least 40 percent and a 27 percent increase in renewables and energy
efficiency, from 1990 levels, by 2030—though the original plan called
for a 30-percent increase in renewables and efficiency.

Already complaining, environmentalists are accusing Europe of abdicating
its “climate policy leadership.” The EU accounts for about a tenth of
the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but has generally done more than
other major industrial powers to curb them.

Greenpeace claimed the compromise “pulled the handbrake on clean energy”
and Oxfam called for targets of 55 percent in emissions cuts, and
increases of 40 percent in energy savings (efficiency) and 45 percent
for use of renewable energy.

While Environmentalists are not happy, the BBC reports: “Europe’s
leaders have been under heavy pressure not to impose much higher costs,
especially when the economy is struggling.”

“Poland has long argued,” according to Reuters, “there is no reason for
Europe …to commit to deeper emissions cuts before the rest of the world
does”—and this is where “I will, if you will” comes in.

EU leaders claim to be “setting an example for the rest of the world,”
yet the final text includes a “flexibility clause,” also called the
“Paris review clause.” According to the EU Observer, “The EU
agreement—the so-called climate and energy framework—is to be reviewed
after an international summit on climate change in Paris in 2015. This
means that, in theory, the European Council can change the targets if
they are not matched by non-European countries.” The report continued:
“Several eastern and central European countries feared that if the EU
set too ambitious targets, while other nations like China or the US,
slack, it could harm their competitiveness.”

The Daily Caller’s Michael Bastasch explains it this way: “the EU goals
are not legally binding until a new United Nations climate treaty is
approved.” He adds: “the EU’s climate targets are only proposals laid
out as a bargaining chip before next year’s UN summit in Paris. A clause
in the EU agreement would trigger a ‘review’ of key climate targets if
the UN summit is a dud.”

Dr. Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation agrees: “The EU
announcement was reported in the media as if the EU has already adopted
these aggressive new CO2 targets. This is however not the case. In
reality the EU Commission only proposed a conditional offer as a
negotiation card to be played during the 2015 negotiations at the UN
climate conference in Paris. In the absence of an international
agreement it is very unlikely that the EU will adopt any new unilateral
targets. The EU has made it perfectly clear that it is no longer willing
to go it alone.”

The chances of a new global treaty in Paris are slim.

190 countries, that, in 2009, pledged $190 billion in aid for
climate-related projects for developing countries, can’t agree on a
formula for their aid commitments. Without the aid, island nations won’t
agree to emissions reductions.

President Obama, according to the New York Times (NYT), looks toward an
“agreement,” a “politically binding” deal, not a “legally binding
treaty”—as the Senate will not ratify a new climate treaty (especially
if the Republicans take control). The NYT quotes Paul Bledsoe, a top
climate-change official in the Clinton administration who works closely
with the Obama White House in international climate policy: “If you want
a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you
cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time.” The
“agreement” would include “voluntary pledges.”

Addressing the potential success of a 2015 global climate agreement,
Roman Kilisek, in Breaking Energy, posits that “it will be illusive and
will at best consist of a plethora of watered down, voluntary, and above
all, flexible carbon emission reduction targets and strategies.”

The NYT’s reporting concurs with the “I will, if you will” approach:
“unilateral action by the world’s largest economy will not be enough to
curb the rise of carbon pollution across the globe. That will be
possible only if the world’s largest economies, including India and
China, agree to enact similar cuts.”

For more than twenty years, international discussions designed to
address climate change have taken place. Parties have signed treaties,
pledges, agreements, and accords. Yet, carbon dioxide emissions are
higher than ever, predictions haven’t come true, and the planet hasn’t
warmed. Polls continue to show that climate change is a low priority for
Americans. Even NPR has cut its climate reporting staff by 75 percent.

Engaging in the symbolism over substance that is typical of the climate
change campaign, the EU agreed to emissions cuts—but only if everyone
else does (the U.S. won’t).

Silly young Warmist acolyte has at least learnt the system: You talk a lot about science but don't actually mention any

Miroslava Korenha

Science has touched every facet of my life and on a broader scale has touched every facet of our existence as human beings.

It's the reason we can have clean water to drink, the reason we can
enjoy a life expectancy over 40 and the reason why we are no longer left
to wonder about the particles that comprise our cells and make life
possible.

Science is enlightenment and science is power yet science must also be
valued and respected. Science is neither partisan nor political
and it never should be.

Unfortunately denying science has become a prevalent position in this
country and more critically one amongst our political leaders.

Denial that our global climate patterns are changing as direct result of
human activity has become an acceptable viewpoint and even more
dishearteningly a counter-view to belief in facts.

If the polls and pundits are right, next week, Democrats will likely
lose control of the Senate and Senator James Inhofe (R-OK)--a man who
denies climate change--will gain the chairmanship of the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee.

This is the same man who calls the consensus of 97% of climate
scientists that our planet is warming due to human activity a hoax--he's
even written a book about it.

Fortunately for him, at 80 years old, Senator Inhofe will never have to
live with the consequences of his actions denying science.

He will likely never see how shifting weather patterns will alter where
we live, what we eat and how we adapt to water scarcity. He will likely
never see the wheat crops of his native state of Oklahoma suffer as
result of unpredictable rain patterns.

Senator Inhofe will be allowed to enjoy spreading incredibly dangerous
rhetoric for a few more years for his political gain and will then pass
leaving a struggling planet in the hands of younger generations.
This sounds awfully convenient.

I am a millennial, a staunch believer in science and I think it is a
shame that this man will be given an opportunity to chair a committee
whose central jurisdiction is that of science.

‘I am sceptical humans are causing global warming’: Buzz Aldrin says more research - and less politics - is needed

The second man on the moon has revealed his thoughts on climate change,
one-way missions to Mars and the state of space exploration.

On 11 November 1966 he set a record for the longest spacewalk at the
time, five and a half hours, during the Gemini 12 mission. He solved
many of the problems that had plagued previous spacewalks, notably using
handrails and footrests to prevent over-exertion.

On 20 July 1969, he became the second man to walk on the moon after Neil
Armstrong. The first words from the lunar surface were actually spoken
by Dr Aldrin when their spacecraft touched down, when he said: ‘Contact
light’.

He resigned from Nasa in July 1971 and later the Air Force. Since then
he has remained an advocate of space exploration, penning papers and
books including ‘Return to Earth’ and the recent ‘Mission to Mars: My
Vision for Space Exploration’.

This inevitably leads to questions about our own planet - for example,
are humans causing global warming that will render our world
uninhabitable?

‘In the news today I hear about the large solar flares, which is an
indication of the power of the sun to influence Earth and our climate,’
Dr Aldrin said.

‘My first inclination is to be a bit sceptical about the claims that
human-produced carbon dioxide is the direct contributor to global
warming.

‘And if there is that doubt, then I think an unbiased non-politically
motivated group of people worldwide, representing us instead of creating
taxes like the carbon tax, should examine the output of different
nations that might contribute to the very large cycles of warming and
cooling that have taken place long before we started to have humans
producing emissions.

‘In a short period of time it appears to some people [that humans are]
the cause of global warming - which is now called climate change - [but]
climate change has certainly existed over time.’

It's a position that will no doubt strike a chord with Nasa, who have
been performing extensive climate missions in recent years to find out
the impact humans are having on the climate.

‘You can tell I’m not too bashful about some of my feelings,’ he
says,’But I try and limit them to areas that I feel my development of
innovations and thinking can be brought to bear on challenges that are
facing civilisation here on Earth.’

He also bemoans some of the excessive funding that is allocated to
climate change research, saying: ‘Space is not as enthusiastically
supported by the world and by the American people anywhere near as much
as it was during the pioneering years of the 60s and 70s.

Dr Aldrin now runs a charity for veterans of previous conflicts and
war-like activities to help them deal with post-traumatic stress
disorder.

With the backing of Mr Palmer's senators and crossbenchers Nick Xenophon
and John Madigan, the policy passed the Senate after a marathon sitting
that went into Friday morning.

At the heart of Direct Action is a $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction
Fund. While the carbon tax encouraged reductions in emissions by
penalising polluters, Direct Action works on the reverse principle.

Instead, the government will pay emitters to reduce their carbon footprint.

Firms will bid for taxpayers' money at a so-called "reverse auction".
Those that propose to get most carbon reduction for the dollar win the
government funding

With the fund are a series of programs, some carried on from Labor,
which earmark how the reductions must be made. Reforestation of degraded
land, carbon capture by farmers, improved indigenous land clearing
techniques and energy efficiency initiatives on a "grand scale" are all
eligible.

There is very little encouragement for wind, hydro and solar energy, but
plenty of support for the Coalition's traditional constituents in big
business and regional Australia.

And the scheme, unlike the carbon tax or other types of emissions trading scheme, is voluntary.

The fund is the carrot, the stick is less well-defined. Penalties for
those who opt out, continue polluting and jeopardise Australia's
international obligation of a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020
are yet to be defined and won't kick in for almost two years.

Mr Hunt said this week he didn't expect any businesses to be penalised.

For the government, Direct Action is a win for the environment and the
hip pocket; direct action will achieve "real and significant"
emissions reductions even as the repeal of the carbon tax eases pressure
on household power bills.

Will direct action work?

There is evidence to back the government's claim that power bills are
being cut due to the carbon tax, or at least are lower than they would
be. The latest Australian Consumer and Competition Commission assessment
reports that savings on electricity bills will vary between 5 and 12
per cent, for a maximum annual saving to household of $263.

But whether Mr Hunt's confident assurance that the outlay of $2.5
billion in taxpayer funds will be enough to meet Australia's modest
target of reducing carbon emission in 2020 by 5 per cent compared to
levels in 2000 remains highly contested.

Almost all the modelling conducted by private firms, some of them linked
to clean energy industry, find that it will fall well short.

Market analysis firm Reputex says it will achieve just 20 to 30 per cent
of the greenhouse gas reductions needed to satisfy the 5 per cent goal.

Research commissioned by the Climate Institute says a shortfall would
mean the government will have to spend an extra $4 billion to meet the
obligation, which is a binding commitment.

"I wouldn't be quite so categorical that we won't reach the target,"
said Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and
Policy at the Australian National University.

Trends towards greater energy efficiency, the decline of the
manufacturing sector, a drop in demand for residential electricity due
to high prices and investing in solar could all mean the 5 per cent goal
is met, even if the contribution from Direct Action is minimal.

Even so, it's an extremely costly way of delivering lower carbon
emissions, argues Mr Jotzo, and completely inadequate when it comes to
reducing emissions beyond the currently mandated 5 per cent decline.

By the end of next year at a UN-sponsored summit in Paris, Australia
will be required to join other nations in committing to further
reductions in greenhouse gases well beyond 2020.

"There's an expectation that something quite significant will happen in
Paris. There will be significant reductions in emissions. You just can't
scale up Direct Action to deal with that without costing huge amounts
of money."

Subsidising industry rather than using market forces to achieve a policy
outcome is at odds with the philosophy of the government, not to
mention its core policy objective of repairing the budget deficit.

The approach has always puzzled analysts, although Greens leader
Christine Milne believes it is explained by the government's desire to
look after its mates.

Such exhortations against big capital by the Greens might be considered pro forma.

But the Abbott government's ties to big business, and the mining and
energy sector in particular, have no precedent in modern political
history.

The Business Council of Australia chairman and chief economist helmed
the government's commission of audit into the state of the budget.

The BCA, which represents the chief executives of Australia's biggest
companies, was also instrumental in developing the government's industry
policy released last month, where two of the five sectors earmarked for
special assistance were in the mining sector.

The mining industry spent an extraordinary $22 million in six weeks
during 2010 to discredit the mining tax, and has also provided political
and financial support to Abbott's anti-carbon tax campaign.

An analysis of political donations by the Greens, sourced from
Australian Electoral Commission data, show the fossil fuel sector
donated $11.8 million to the major parties over the past 15 years, of
which $8 million went to the Coalition.

Mr Palmer, too, benefits financially from the government's climate
change approach. His Queensland nickel refinery is an emitter that paid
almost $10 million in carbon taxes. It could now apply for a Direct
Action subsidy to reduce emissions.

His extensive coalmining tenements in Queensland's Galilee Basin means
he has an interest in the ongoing success of coal-fired power
generators, big winners with the end of the carbon tax.

After announcing the policy backflip, Mr Palmer spruiked the merits of "clean" Australian coal as a solution to global warming.

Questions of whether Mr Palmer always intended to put his business
interests first will linger. Certainly, the mining magnate began his
journey into politics after Campbell Newman's Liberal National
government in Queensland refused to support a proposed rail line that
would serve his as yet undeveloped coalmines.

Until then, the former press secretary to Queensland premier Joh Bjelke
Petersen was the party's major donor and a Coalition grandee.

Those who advised Mr Palmer insist the assessment is too harsh.

Don Henry, the former boss of the Australian Conservation Foundation, led the negotiations with Mr Palmer on behalf of Mr Gore.

He says Mr Palmer is a "complex character" who is "genuinely interested in a clean economy".

"He's genuinely wants to champion an ETS," says Mr Henry, adding "there
was never any expectation that the government would immediately embrace
it".

"It's good that the Climate Change Authority has been saved and given an
additional and important role to look at an ETS and to look at the
international targeting. I think it's an important step forward."

The stay of execution for the CCA, which is independent and advises
government on what a future emissions reduction target should be and how
to achieve it, was the government's "gesture" to compensate Mr
Palmer for rejecting his demand for an ETS with a price on carbon of
zero that would rise as other countries embraced emissions reduction.

Despite a draft being circulated among press gallery staff in Canberra,
the terms of reference for the review, let alone a plan to replace about
20 CCA staff who have resigned since the Coalition took office, are not
yet forthcoming. At any rate, Mr Hunt, almost gleefully, said he will
ignore any recommendation in favour of an ETS, as the body has done
before.

"Our position is absolutely clear. We've just abolished the carbon tax
and we're not about to reinstitute it whether you call it a carbon tax
or an ETS," Mr Hunt told Fairfax Radio.

Heat is on the Weather Bureau after MP accuses it of wiping 118-year-old temperature records to justify claims of climate change

An MP will launch an inquiry which accuses the Bureau of Meteorology of manipulating figures on the impact of climate change.

George Christensen, member off the Nationals party, claimed the Bureau
had 'fudged' records of rising temperatures as well as tampering with
older data in order to justify claims of climate change.

The member for the seat of Dawson in Queensland used records from a
drought in 1896, when temperatures reached 50C in Camden, south-west of
Sydney, as well as 43C in Geelong, south-west of Melbourne.

Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Mr Christensen said: 'I rise to
paint a picture of Camden. A picture where Camden, just to the
south-west of Sydney, is sweltering in 50C heat.'

He cited that in the summer of 1896 alone, there were 435 instances of heat related deaths.

'The Bureau of Meteorology claims it's getting hotter and hotter. How
can last year be the hottest on record if it was hotter back in 1896,
118 years ago?' 'It's relatively simple: the early years are simply
wiped from the official record.'

Mr Christensen claimed you can find the values he is referring to on the
Bureau website, but they are not part of the official temperature
record the bureau uses to report on climate change issues.

He said the Bureau was also involved in a process of tampering with the raw data so the past appeared cooler than the present.

'Obviously if you drop down temperatures from the past, all the later
temperatures will appear warmer even if they are not,' he said.

'We cannot use fudged figures skewed to support a global warming
hypothesis. We have a scientific process being tainted at the source.'

Mr Christensen said he would use evidence of the Bureau's misconduct to launch an inquiry this week.

Senator Simon Birmingham, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister
for the Environment, told Daily Mail Australia 'the country's climate
record and the methods used for analysis by the Bureau were
independently reviewed by international experts in 2012 to ensure
quality assurance, transparency and communication''

'The review concluded that the Bureau's data and methods for climate
analysis were among the best in the world,' Mr Birmingham said.

'The review also recommended that a regular and independent technical
forum occur to ensure continuous confidence in and improvement of this
dataset.

'These measures should give all Australians confidence that the Bureau
is continually striving to deliver the most accurate climate records,
based on the best available scientific methodologies.'

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

2 November, 2014

A disagreement over climate-conflict link heats up

I agree with one of the critics below about meta-analyses. They are very susceptible to bias. See, for instance here. One good solid gold study beats any meta-analysis. My own research into various effects of a warmer climate ended up with findings of no effect

A debate among scientists over climate change and conflict has turned
ugly. At issue is the question of whether the hotter temperatures and
chaotic weather produced by climate change are causing higher rates of
violence. A new analysis refutes earlier research that found a link, and
the two lead researchers are exchanging some pointed remarks.

Last year, a team of U.S. researchers reported a robust connection
between climate and violence in Science. But in a critique published
online yesterday in Climatic Change, a team of mostly European
researchers dismissed the connection as "inconclusive." The Science
authors are hitting back, claiming that the critics are fudging the
statistics and even manipulating their figures.

The new analysis "is entirely based on surprisingly bold
misrepresentations of our article, the literature, basic statistics, and
their own findings," says Solomon Hsiang, the lead author of the
Science paper and an economist at the University of California,
Berkeley.

Numerous past studies have found a correlation between heat waves and
violence, manifesting as conflicts between individuals and between
groups. Demonstrating a direct connection between climate change and
violence on a global scale, however, is tricky. It requires a
meta-analysis of hundreds of already published studies that have
slightly different techniques and measurement scales. Hsiang's team
performed just such a meta-analysis and grabbed headlines with their
findings that a changing climate appeared to be amping up conflict.

The Science paper was met with some skepticism, however, and some of
those skeptics have been building their case. The Climatic Change
critique is authored by Halvard Buhaug, an economist at the Peace
Research Institute Oslo, and co-signed by 25 of his colleagues. The
problem, Buhaug wrote in an e-mail to ScienceInsider, is that the
meta-analysis "blends all sorts of actors at all sorts of spatial and
temporal scales. … [They] draw sweeping conclusions that, supposedly,
are robust and apply across scales and types of violent conflict. Of
course that doesn’t make sense. But it works if you seek attention." He
also accuses Hsiang's team of "severe bias in sample selection” and says
that his analysis of the same data did not support the climate-conflict
link.

Why critique the research now? The study "appears to have had some
influence on policy thinking," Buhaug wrote, citing a recent U.S.
Department of Defense road map on addressing climate change in military
planning and another report by the CNA Corporation on climate change and
security. Such official statements "reinforce the impression that the
climate-conflict link is considered uncontroversial in policy circles,”
Buhaug wrote. “As scientists and experts on this issue, we see it as our
duty to provide a more balanced message."

Hsiang in standing by his analysis. In a detailed, blow-by-blow blog
post responding to the new paper, Hsiang charges Buhaug with basic
mathematical errors that undermine his conclusion. In an e-mail to
ScienceInsider, Hsiang also accuses Buhaug’s group of "doctoring the
display of their figures." (The evidence of that alleged doctoring is
laid out in Hsiang’s blog post.)

The spat has other researchers exasperated. "What is frustrating is that
they can't work together," says Andrew Solow, a statistician at the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who is associated
with neither side. "Why can't they get together and thrash these issues
out? Even if they don't come to an agreement, they could explore
alternative modeling choices and their implications."

Solow adds that he is "not a big fan" of meta-analysis, in part because
the technique sparks disputes like these. Rather than directly
addressing the scientific question of whether climate change is causing
an increase in conflict, he says, "this disagreement is over the degree
to which studies of the climate-conflict link agree [with each other]."

UK: Offshore wind farms may be scrapped due to budget cap, ScottishPower warns

Several proposed offshore wind farms may be scrapped in coming months
because the Government is not awarding enough subsidies, the head of
energy giant ScottishPower has said.

Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer, said it was cutting the size of
its planned 240-turbine East Anglia offshore wind farm because the
budget for subsidies to be awarded this year was “not big enough”. The
project could be scrapped altogether if it did not secure a subsidy
contract this year.

Those offshore wind farms that do get built in coming years will be
unnecessarily expensive because ministers are effectively forcing
companies to build smaller projects, preventing them from developing
economies of scale, he claimed. As a result the Government would miss
its own target for cutting offshore wind’s costs by 2020, Mr Anderson,
the former head of the Offshore Wind Industry Council, forecast.

Offshore wind farms are heavily subsidised through levies on consumer
energy bills. Ministers are preparing to award subsidy contracts for new
projects in a "reverse auction" over coming months, but the maximum
available budget is barely half the size the wind industry had expected,
Mr Anderson said.

About five projects are expected to compete for the subsidies, which can
realistically fund just one 700MW-800MW offshore wind farm, according
to industry body Renewable UK.

Mr Anderson told the Telegraph that ScottishPower was being forced to
scale back its proposed 1.2 gigawatt (GW) wind farm off the coast of
East Anglia in order that its total annual subsidy requirement would be
less than £235m – the maximum budget being awarded this year.

Even then, it risked losing out to rival projects.

“There will be more applications than there is budget,” Mr Anderson
confirmed. “I think on the back of the auction there will be a lot of
companies re-examining what they do with their projects and whether they
are viable any more.

“We are hopeful we can submit a competitive bid and win, but if we are
sitting here in January and have not got a contract we would have to
totally reschedule the project timeline. Until we had analysed all of
that we wouldn’t have a clue as to whether the project would still be
economically viable. We would have to totally reassess and re-examine
the whole project.”

No subsidy allocation has been confirmed to be awarded next year,
although ministers have indicated there is roughly £1bn to be allocated
over the rest of the decade.

Mr Anderson said that by awarding such limited budgets at a time, the
Government was stymieing its own aim of cutting the technology’s costs.

Offshore wind farms currently receive about £150 - roughly triple the
market price of power – for every megawatt-hour of power they generate.
Ministers have said that cost should be cut to £100 for projects being
awarded contracts in 2020.

“You cannot build a huge big project, so you will not get the big
economies of scale,” Mr Anderson said. He said the kind of projects
being proposed now had originally been expected to be at least 1GW each
in order to drive cost efficiencies.

“Our belief is if you drove the process to do projects of that size and
scale you would drive the costs down harder and faster. If you push the
projects down to smaller size and scale, we don’t think you will get the
cost reduction coming through the industry as quickly as you could.

“If you wanted to hit magical £100 target by 2020, I think doing it this
way pushes it out by a few years,” he said. “It’s been made more
difficult and it will take longer.”

Energy Secretary, Ed Davey, said the government had no plans to increase
its subsidy cap so as to ensure customers get best value for money.

“It’s very important that government has a budget and doesn’t have
unconstrained spending which won’t provide the best value for consumers”
said the Liberal Democrat minister.

“Having a disciplined budget will help drive competition and if it means
we only get the most efficient projects coming forward ahead of others,
then I celebrate that.”

Mr Davey added that he believes the government is still on target to bring down the costs of wind power by 2020.

“Green energy is part of the government’s long term economic plan and we
are seeing wind generation increase in very big increases. We are ahead
of our targets.”

Frankenfood or saviour of the starving? In the latest blow to the
anti-GM movement, a consortium of European scientists has urged
government to embrace GM food as the only way to feed the planet.
They're not the only ones: last year, the then Environment Secretary,
Owen Paterson, made a major speech calling on the European Union to drop
its barriers preventing genetically modified organisms being grown and
sold in Europe. It could, he said, be the difference between survival
and starvation for millions of people around the world.

So what's the truth? (And if what follows is familiar, it's because it's
based on a piece I wrote at the time of Paterson's speech - but then,
the facts about GM haven't changed in that time.)

Everyone agrees that we need to get better at feeding people. Our
population reached seven billion two years ago; it is predicted to level
off at nine billion in the middle of this century. GM proponents
suggest that it can be an important tool in our battle to feed that
ever-growing number of mouths; opponents suggest that it is a
distraction, and a dangerous one.

There’s no denying that it has the power to do good, says Mark Lynas, an
environmental writer and author of The God Species: How the Planet Can
Survive the Age of Humans. “For example, in Missouri, they’re growing GM
cassava, which is an important food crop for 300 million people in
sub-Saharan Africa. The cassava that’s being grown in Africa is being
hit by a viral infection that’s sweeping across the continent, so a
major threat to food security. There’s no way a resistant strain can be
made by conventional breeding – it’s a bit like vaccination, in that a
tiny bit of viral DNA is put into the plant genome, and you can’t do
that with selective breeding.” It could undoubtedly save lives, he says.

There is a precedent here. In the 1960s, much of the developing world
faced starvation. But using agricultural technology – not GM, but older
methods such as backcrossing – a man called Norman Borlaug created dwarf
grains which grew faster and were more resilient, and staved off
disaster. Borlaug’s inventions are credited with saving as many as a
billion lives.

The GM revolution may have similarly dramatic effects: scientists have
high hopes for salt-resistant crops which could grow in previously
unusable coastal land; the agricultural research group Rothamsted
Research has developed an aphid-resistant wheat. But activists are
concerned that the companies which develop these strains will have
unprecedented power over the food chain. “My main concern is the
empowerment of the food corporations,” says George Monbiot, the
environmentalist and author of Feral: Searching for enchantment on the
frontiers of rewilding. “An executive of the biotech company Monsanto
said in 1996 that their aim was the ‘consolidation of the entire food
chain’,” he says. “Monsanto quite overtly positioned GM as their means
of achieving that goal, and it was quite a clear battle-plan that they
had: an aggressive patenting regime, patenting technologies and genetic
material.”

The GM organisms themselves, he says, are far less of a concern.
“Primarily, it’s about power,” he says. “A huge volume of academic work
has shown that how well people are fed is less to do with the actual
quantity of food available in the world, and more to do with who
controls the food chain, how well the food is distributed, and the
degree of democracy – people don’t starve in democracies, because they
are able to lobby to get access to food.” GM, and the ability to patent
genomes, place far more power in the hands of major companies. He also
points out that despite the grand claims that GM could feed the poor,
the majority of GM crops in Europe have been used as animal feed.

Lynas agrees that aggressive patenting is a concern. “Ownership of this
technology could be concentrated in too few hands; I would like to see a
much more open-source approach. A lot of biotech scientists are very
critical of the overuse of the patenting system.” But it’s a wider
problem than GM alone. “It’s about how technology is controlled in a
society. It’s not an argument against the use of that technology.”

We have to strike a balance, he says, between allowing firms to make a
profit – which, after all, is how much innovation happens – and allowing
the spread of these technologies in a way that allows them to get to
where they are needed. There are positive steps being taken: some
publicly funded researchers like Rothamsted patent their work but then
make it available on public licences; the “golden rice” project, a GM
crop which is designed to combat vitamin A deficiency, is being made
available for free to poor subsistence farmers in Asia on similar free
licences, by (among others) Monsanto. But there are still problems,
analogous to those of making antiretroviral drugs affordable to poor
African HIV sufferers.

The problem is that the GM debate is framed too much as a Manichaean
good-and-evil thing, says Lynas (and Monbiot, who also acknowledges that
new technology is vital in the fight to feed the world), who blames a
lot of the opposition to it on “the naturalistic fallacy”. “Like
splitting the atom, it doesn’t happen in nature, so it’s bad,” he says.
“It’s a deep cultural response, almost a lizard-brain thing.” But to be
for or against “GM” as a monolithic entity is irrational. “It’s just a
technique. It’s like saying I’m against tractors,” he says.

Few topics fuel as much reader attention as climate change. Adam Bryant
recently became editor of The Times’s expanded team covering the
environment. We asked him how he is approaching the position.

Q.
How did this job come about for you?

A.
When I met with Dean Baquet, our executive editor, in August, he said he
wanted to beef up The Times’s coverage of climate change and the
environment, and asked me if I would be interested in overseeing an
expanded team of reporters. I had just come off a long project – I was
part of the team that worked on the Innovation Report – and I jumped at
the opportunity.

It’s a fascinating and important topic, full of nuance and complexity
(example here), and I get to work with an amazing group of reporters.
It’s also a subject that touches on so many different aspects – science,
politics, policy, population growth, agriculture, history. The list
goes on and on.

Q.
It is a sprawling topic. What is your strategy for covering it?

A.
There’s no simple playbook, but here are a few thoughts. Part of The
Times’s role is to separate the signal from the noise. There are a lot
of reports and papers and studies published every day, and Times readers
rely on us to choose carefully which ones we’re going to cover.

We also want to cover this story on all fronts – including threats,
causes and potential solutions. We want to focus on what’s happening now
(examples here and here), as well as what may happen in the future
(examples here and here). I also want to make sure we give readers
guidance about the relative importance and impact of different causes
and potential solutions – for example, how do emissions from coal plants
compare to tailpipe emissions from cars?

One challenge about the coverage is that many people may have a sense
that the story line is somewhat fixed – they believe climate change is a
problem, or perhaps they don’t. So we’ll look for opportunities to
connect dots in new ways, or frame stories based on “good dumb
questions,” as journalists like to call them.

Q.
Is the equivalency issue dead? To what extent should we feel obligated to include the views of climate change skeptics?

A.
Claims that the entire field of climate science is some kind of giant
hoax do not hold water, and we have made a conscious decision that we
are not going to take that point of view seriously. At
the same time, there is a huge amount of legitimate debate and
uncertainty within mainstream science. Scientists are pretty open about
not being sure how bad things will get, or how quickly. These are the
valid scientific issues and uncertainties that we want to cover.

A recent front-page piece by Justin Gillis — Scientists Trace Extreme
Heat in Australia to Climate Change – provides a good example of
providing informed second opinions on a topic. In his piece, Justin
quoted an expert who has often been skeptical of claimed links between
weather events and global warming in the past. But in this new study we
were reporting on, he said the evidence was strong. That insight is more
useful to readers than quoting someone who believes the entire field of
study is built on a pillar of sand.

Q.
There’s so much bad news and warnings that have been reported in recent
years. How do you keep a certain numbness from setting in on the part of
readers?

A.
The grim news can be overwhelming – droughts, fires, flooding,
deforestation, etc. But there is a lot happening around the world to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Germany is on track
to get close to 30 percent of its energy from renewables this year, for
example, as we reported in a recent front-page article. The cost of
wind and solar energy is dropping fast around the world.

Q.
You’ve worked as an editor on the national desk and in features, but
you’ve spent most of your career as a reporter and editor covering
business. Do you have a background in science?

A.
I don’t have a background in science, though I’ve always been curious
about how our world is changing, the forces at work, how big decisions
are made, and the people who make them (in that regard, I’ll be
continuing with my Corner Office interviews in the Sunday Business
section, though I’ve dropped the Friday installment to concentrate on my
new job). I’m going to have a steep learning curve, but many of the
reporters on my team have breathtakingly deep knowledge on a range of
subjects. My job as editor will be to help choose the topics that are
most important, then to make sure the stories are told in a clear,
understandable, watertight and compelling way.

Radio 4's Today swallows the bunkum spouted by 'warmists' such as Lord May

Profitable prophet Walport

The main qualifications for being paid £165,000-a-year to act as
the government’s “chief scientific adviser” these days, it seems, are
that (a) one should know nothing about climate science, and (b) that one
should then appear regularly on the Today programme to terrify
listeners that the threat posed by man-made global warming is “much
worse than was previously thought”.

Following those “population biologists” Lord May and Sir John
Beddington, and the “surface chemist” Sir David King, the latest to play
this game is the immunologist Sir Mark Walport. On Friday he was
invited by Jim Naughtie to pronounce gravely about yet another new study
claiming that the oceans are “acidifying”, to a level not known for “65
million years”.

For every scientific paper that pushes this particular long-familiar
scare story, another points out that to talk about the oceans turning to
acid when their average pH level is still way above 7.0 is just
scientific bunkum.

But what the warmists also overlook is the science that tells us that
when the oceans grow warmer they give off more CO2 rather than the other
way round. So, if the oceans are warming, as the warmists like to
claim, they should contain less CO2, not more. They cannot have it both
ways. But we can no more expect our immunologist to know this than we
can expect Mr Naughtie to do anything but eagerly murmur assent to the
great man’s every nonsensical word.

EPA Director Gina McCarthy has praised environmental lawyers for their
work, telling them “enforcement really is democracy in action.”

“When I think about how effective we’ve been I keep coming back to the
same reason for that effectiveness, it’s because our laws have teeth,
it’s because EPA is empowered to enforce them,” McCarthy told attendees
at the American Bar Association Fall Conference.

“And its because of your work, your hard work to uphold the integrity of
those environmental statutes. Enforcement really is democracy in
action.”

McCarthy was a keynote speaker for the Oct. 9th event in Miami.

“You know that America’s rule of law is only as good as the credible
system that implements and enforces it. Laws talk the talk but
implementation and strong enforcement is what walks the walk. It
separates us from other nations,” McCarthy said.

Preserving
the graphics: Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from
elsewhere. But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life
-- as little as a week in some cases. After that they no longer
come up. From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly
copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text
and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even
if they are no longer coming up on this site. See here or here

*****************************************

This site is in favour of things that ARE good for the environment. That
the usual Greenie causes are good for the environment is however
disputed.

Context for the minute average temperature change recorded: At any
given time surface air temperatures around the world range over about
100°C. Even in the same place they can vary by nearly that much
seasonally and as much as 30°C or more in a day. A minute rise in
average temperature in that context is trivial if it is not meaningless
altogether. Warmism is a money-grubbing racket, not science.

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman

"The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken

'Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action' -- Goethe

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -- Voltaire

Lord Salisbury: "No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by
experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you
believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians,
nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe."

Calvin Coolidge said, "If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." He could have been talking about Warmists.

Some advice from long ago for Warmists: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans,there'd be no room for tinkers".
It's a nursery rhyme harking back to Middle English times when "an"
could mean "if". Tinkers were semi-skilled itinerant workers who fixed
holes and handles in pots and pans -- which were valuable household
items for most of our history. Warmists are very big on "ifs", mays",
"might" etc. But all sorts of things "may" happen, including global
cooling

Bertrand Russell knew about consensus: "The fact that an opinion has
been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd;
indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a
widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer and moralist (1613-1680)

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" -- William of Occam

"In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy". (Bob Parks, Physics, U of Maryland). No prizes for guessing how global warming skepticism is normally responded to.

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to
acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of
duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." -- Thomas H. Huxley

Time was, people warning the world "Repent - the end is
nigh!" were snickered at as fruitcakes. Now they own the media and run
the schools.

"One of the sources of the Fascist movement is the desire to avoid a too-rational and too-comfortable world" -- George Orwell, 1943 in Can Socialists Be Happy?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics
are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts -- Bertrand Russell

“Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of
the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development
of the others.” -- John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001

The closer science looks at the real world processes involved in
climate regulation the more absurd the IPCC's computer driven fairy tale
appears. Instead of blithely modeling climate based on hunches and
suppositions, climate scientists would be better off abandoning their
ivory towers and actually measuring what happens in the real world.' -- Doug L Hoffman

Something no Warmist could take on board: "Knuth once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Prof. Donald Knuth, whom some regard as the world's smartest man

"To be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective.
They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against" -- Rich Kozlovich

ABOUT:

This is one of TWO skeptical blogs that I update daily. During my
research career as a social scientist, I was appalled at how much
writing in my field was scientifically lacking -- and I often said so in
detail in the many academic journal articles I had published in that
field. I eventually gave up social science research, however, because
no data ever seemed to change the views of its practitioners. I hoped
that such obtuseness was confined to the social scientists but now that I
have shifted my attention to health related science and climate
related science, I find the same impermeability to facts and logic.
Hence this blog and my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC
blog. I may add that I did not come to either health or environmental
research entirely without credentials. I had several academic papers
published in both fields during my social science research career

Update: After 8 years of confronting the frankly childish standard of
reasoning that pervades the medical journals, I have given up. I have
put the blog into hibernation. In extreme cases I may put up here some
of the more egregious examples of medical "wisdom" that I encounter.
Greenies and food freaks seem to be largely coterminous. My regular
bacon & egg breakfasts would certainly offend both -- if only
because of the resultant methane output

Since my academic background is in the social sciences, it is
reasonable to ask what a social scientist is doing talking about global
warming. My view is that my expertise is the most relevant of all. It
seems clear to me from what you will see on this blog that belief in
global warming is very poorly explained by history, chemistry, physics
or statistics.

Warmism is prophecy, not science. Science cannot foretell the future.
Science can make very accurate predictions based on known regularities
in nature (e.g. predicting the orbits of the inner planets) but Warmism
is the exact opposite of that. It predicts a DEPARTURE from the known
regularities of nature. If we go by the regularities of nature, we are
on the brink of an ice age.

And from a philosophy of science viewpoint, far from being "the
science", Warmism is not even an attempt at a factual statement, let
alone being science. It is not a meaningful statement about the world.
Why? Because it is unfalsifiable -- making it a religious, not a
scientific statement. To be a scientific statement, there would have to
be some conceivable event that disproved it -- but there appears to be
none. ANY event is hailed by Warmists as proving their contentions.
Only if Warmists were able to specify some fact or event that would
disprove their theory would it have any claim to being a scientific
statement. So the explanation for Warmist beliefs has to be primarily a
psychological and political one -- which makes it my field

And, after all, Al Gore's academic qualifications are in social science also -- albeit very pissant qualifications.

A "geriatric" revolt: The scientists who reject Warmism tend to
be OLD! Your present blogger is one of those. There are tremendous
pressures to conformity in academe and the generally Leftist orientation
of academe tends to pressure everyone within it to agree to ideas that
suit the Left. And Warmism is certainly one of those ideas. So old
guys are the only ones who can AFFORD to declare the Warmists to be
unclothed. They either have their careers well-established (with
tenure) or have reached financial independence (retirement) and so can
afford to call it like they see it. In general, seniors in society
today are not remotely as helpful to younger people as they once were.
But their opposition to the Warmist hysteria will one day show that
seniors are not completely irrelevant after all. Experience does count
(we have seen many such hysterias in the past and we have a broader
base of knowledge to call on) and our independence is certainly an
enormous strength. Some of us are already dead. (Reid Bryson and John Daly are particularly mourned) and some of us are very senior indeed (e.g. Bill Gray and Vince Gray) but the revolt we have fostered is ever growing so we have not labored in vain.

SOME POINTS TO PONDER:

Climate is just the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the
weather a month in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate
50 years in advance. And official meteorologists such as Britain's Met
Office and Australia's BOM, are very poor forecasters of weather. The
Met office has in fact given up on making seasonal forecasts because
they have so often got such forecasts embarrassingly wrong. Their
global-warming-powered "models" just did not deliver

A strange Green/Left conceit: They seem to think (e.g. here)
that no-one should spend money opposing them and that conservative
donors must not support the election campaigns of Congressmen they
agree with

After three exceptionally cold winters in the Northern hemisphere, the
Warmists are chanting: "Warming causes cold". Even if we give that a
pass for logic, it still inspires the question: "Well, what are we
worried about"? Cold is not going to melt the icecaps is it?"

It's a central (but unproven) assumption of the Warmist "models" that
clouds cause warming. Odd that it seems to cool the temperature down
when clouds appear overhead!

To make out that the essentially trivial warming of the last 150 years
poses some sort of threat, Warmists postulate positive feedbacks that
might cut in to make the warming accelerate in the near future. Amid
their theories about feedbacks, however, they ignore the one feedback
that is no theory: The reaction of plants to CO2. Plants gobble up CO2
and the more CO2 there is the more plants will flourish and hence
gobble up yet more CO2. And the increasing crop yields of recent years
show that plantlife is already flourishing more. The recent rise in CO2
will therefore soon be gobbled up and will no longer be around to
bother anyone. Plants provide a huge NEGATIVE feedback in response to
increases in atmospheric CO2

Every green plant around us is made out of carbon dioxide that the
plant has grabbed out of the atmosphere. That the plant can get its
carbon from such a trace gas is one of the miracles of life. It
admittedly uses the huge power of the sun to accomplish such a vast
filtrative task but the fact that a dumb plant can harness the power of
the sun so effectively is also a wonder. We live on a rather
improbable planet. If a science fiction writer elsewhere in the
universe described a world like ours he might well be ridiculed for
making up such an implausible tale.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "HEAT TRAPPING GAS". A gas can become
warmer by contact with something warmer or by infrared radiation
shining on it or by adiabatic (pressure) effects but it cannot trap
anything. Air is a gas. Try trapping something with it!

Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilization -- and they intend to be.

The Greenie message is entirely emotional and devoid of all
logic. They say that polar ice will melt and cause a big sea-level
rise. Yet 91% of the world's glacial ice is in Antarctica, where the
average temperature is around minus 40 degrees Celsius. The melting
point of ice is zero degrees. So for the ice to melt on any scale the
Antarctic temperature would need to rise by around 40 degrees, which
NOBODY is predicting. The median Greenie prediction is about 4 degrees.
So where is the huge sea level rise going to come from? Mars? And
the North polar area is mostly sea ice and melting sea ice does not
raise the sea level at all. Yet Warmists constantly hail any sign of
Arctic melting. That the melting of floating ice does not raise the
water level is known as Archimedes' principle. Archimedes demonstrated
it around 2,500 years ago. That Warmists have not yet caught up with
that must be just about the most inspissated ignorance imaginable. The
whole Warmist scare defies the most basic physics. Yet at the opening
of 2011 we find the following unashamed lying by James Hansen:
"We will lose all the ice in the polar ice cap in a couple of
decades". Sadly, what the Vulgate says in John 1:5 is still only very
partially true: "Lux in tenebris lucet". There is still much darkness in the minds of men.

The repeated refusal of Warmist "scientists" to make their raw
data available to critics is such a breach of scientific protocol that
it amounts to a confession in itself. Note, for instance Phil Jones'
Feb 21, 2005 response to Warwick Hughes' request for his raw climate
data: "We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make
the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something
wrong with it?" Looking for things that might be wrong with a given
conclusion is of course central to science. But Warmism cannot survive
such scrutiny. So even after "Climategate", the secrecy goes on.

Most Greenie causes are at best distractions from real
environmental concerns (such as land degradation) and are more
motivated by a hatred of people than by any care for the environment

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity
that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence
showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of
the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty
and human choices. -- Prof. P. Stott

The modern environmental movement arose out of the wreckage of
the New Left. They call themselves Green because they're too yellow to
admit they're really Reds. So Lenin's birthday was chosen to be the
date of Earth Day. Even a moderate politician like Al Gore has been
clear as to what is needed. In "Earth in the Balance", he wrote that
saving the planet would require a "wrenching transformation of
society".

For centuries there was a scientific consensus which said that
fire was explained by the release of an invisible element called
phlogiston. That theory is universally ridiculed today. Global warming
is the new phlogiston. Though, now that we know how deliberate the
hoax has been, it might be more accurate to call global warming the New Piltdown Man. The Piltdown hoax took 40 years to unwind. I wonder....

Motives: Many people would like to be kind to others so
Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people
want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing
all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the
real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better
than everyone else, truth regardless.

Policies: The only underlying theme that makes sense of all
Greenie policies is hatred of people. Hatred of other people has been a
Greenie theme from way back. In a report titled "The First Global
Revolution" (1991, p. 104) published by the "Club of Rome", a Greenie
panic outfit, we find the following statement: "In searching for a
new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the
threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit
the bill.... All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The
real enemy, then, is humanity itself." See here for many more examples of prominent Greenies saying how much and how furiously they hate you.

The conventional wisdom of the day is often spectacularly wrong.
The most popular and successful opera of all time is undoubtedly
"Carmen" by Georges Bizet. Yet it was much criticized when first
performed and the unfortunate Bizet died believing that it was a flop.
Similarly, when the most iconic piece of 20th century music was first
performed in 1913-- Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- half the audience
walked out. Those of us who defy the conventional wisdom about climate
are actually better off than that. Unlike Bizet and Stravinsky in 1913,
we KNOW that we will eventually be vindicated -- because all that
supports Warmism is a crumbling edifice of guesswork ("models").

Al Gore won a political prize for an alleged work of science. That rather speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Jim Hansen and his twin

Getting rich and famous through alarmism: Al Gore is well-known but note
also James Hansen. He has for decades been a senior, presumably
well-paid, employee at NASA. In 2001 he was the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award. In 2007 Time magazine designated him a Hero of the Environment. That same year he pocketed one-third of a $1 million Dan David Prize. In 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented him with its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. In 2010 he landed a $100,000 Sophie Prize. He pulled in a total of $1.2 million in 2010. Not bad for a government bureaucrat.

See the original global Warmist in action here: "The icecaps are melting and all world is drowning to wash away the sin"

I am not a global warming skeptic nor am I a global warming
denier. I am a global warming atheist. I don't believe one bit of it.
That the earth's climate changes is undeniable. Only ignoramuses
believe that climate stability is normal. But I see NO evidence to say
that mankind has had anything to do with any of the changes observed --
and much evidence against that claim.

Seeing that we are all made of carbon, the time will come when
people will look back on the carbon phobia of the early 21st century as
too incredible to be believed

Meanwhile, however, let me venture a tentative prophecy.
Prophecies are almost always wrong but here goes: Given the common
hatred of carbon (Warmists) and salt (Food freaks) and given the fact
that we are all made of carbon, salt, water and calcium (with a few
additives), I am going to prophecy that at some time in the future a
hatred of nitrogen will emerge. Why? Because most of the air that we
breathe is nitrogen. We live at the bottom of a nitrogen sea. Logical
to hate nitrogen? NO. But probable: Maybe. The Green/Left is mad
enough. After all, nitrogen is a CHEMICAL -- and we can't have that!

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180)
must have foreseen Global Warmism. He said: "The object in life is not
to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the
ranks of the insane."

The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research
grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of
money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some
belief in global warming?

For many people, global warming seems to have taken the place of
"The Jews" -- a convenient but false explanation for any disliked
event. Prof. Brignell has some examples.

Global warming skeptics are real party-poopers. It's so wonderful to believe that you have a mission to save the world.

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist
instinct") in many people that causes them to delight in going without
material comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such
people -- with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example.
Many Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that
instinct too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious
committments they have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them
to live in an ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them
to press on us all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

The claim that oil is a fossil fuel is another great myth and
folly of the age. They are now finding oil at around seven MILES
beneath the sea bed -- which is incomparably further down than any
known fossil. The abiotic oil theory is not as yet well enough
developed to generate useful predictions but that is also true of fossil
fuel theory

Green/Left denial of the facts explained: "Rejection lies in this,
that when the light came into the world men preferred darkness to light;
preferred it, because their doings were evil. Anyone who acts
shamefully hates the light, will not come into the light, for fear that
his doings will be found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes
to the light" John 3:19-21 (Knox)

Against the long history of huge temperature variation in the
earth's climate (ice ages etc.), the .6 of one degree average rise
reported by the U.N. "experts" for the entire 20th century (a rise so
small that you would not be able to detect such a difference personally
without instruments) shows, if anything, that the 20th century was a
time of exceptional temperature stability.

Recent NASA figures
tell us that there was NO warming trend in the USA during the 20th
century. If global warming is occurring, how come it forgot the USA?

Warmists say that the revised NASA figures do not matter because
they cover only the USA -- and the rest of the world is warming nicely.
But it is not. There has NEVER been any evidence that the Southern
hemisphere is warming. See here. So the warming pattern sure is looking moth-eaten.

The latest scare is the possible effect of extra CO2 on the
world’s oceans, because more CO2 lowers the pH of seawater. While it is
claimed that this makes the water more acidic, this is misleading. Since
seawater has a pH around 8.1, it will take an awful lot of CO2 it to
even make the water neutral (pH=7), let alone acidic (pH less than 7).

In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility.
Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the
atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the
oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates. No
comprehensive, reliable measurement of worldwide oceanic acid/base
balance has ever been carried out: therefore, there is no observational
basis for the computer models' guess that acidification of 0.1 pH units
has occurred in recent decades.

The chaos theory people have told us for years that the air
movement from a single butterfly's wing in Brazil can cause an
unforeseen change in our weather here. Now we are told that climate
experts can "model" the input of zillions of such incalculable variables
over periods of decades to accurately forecast global warming 50 years
hence. Give us all a break!

Scientists have politics too -- sometimes extreme politics. Read this: "This
crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism... I
am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils,
namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by
an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In
such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and
are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts
production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to
be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to
every man, woman, and child." -- Albert Einstein

The Lockwood & Froehlich paper
was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film.
It is a rather confused paper -- acknowledging yet failing to account
fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is
nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a
Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven
climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of
the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the
paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in
recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie
mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that
reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented
July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even
have been the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact
that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving
into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got
the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and very detailed critiques here and here and here for more on the Lockwood paper and its weaknesses.

As the Greenies are now learning, even strong statistical correlations may disappear if a longer time series is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:"The
modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by
Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the
number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an
acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient
between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was
doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green,
Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished
the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in
Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in
1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and
economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The
correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added."
So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. In the
Greenie case, the correlation between CO2 rise and global temperature
rise stopped in 1998 -- but that could have been foreseen if
measurements taken in the first half of the 20th century had been
considered.

Greenie-approved sources of electricity (windmills and solar
cells) require heavy government subsidies to be competitive with normal
electricity generators so a Dutch word for Greenie power seems graphic
to me: "subsidieslurpers" (subsidy gobblers)

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here. (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the
article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename
the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/